After the Void
by whoficky
Summary: What would have happened to Rose if Pete Tyler wasn't there to save her from falling into the Void? Rose is trapped in the hellish place between worlds. The Doctor would do anything to get her back, but nothing is simple when navigating realities. And rescuing Rose turns out to be just the beginning of a much longer journey.
1. Chapter 1

_He had thought that if they succeeded, if they could bring her back, no matter what happened it would be ok. He thought he could be at peace knowing that she was no longer suffering, even if he lost her in the end. But as soon as he saw her pulled screaming back from the void, all that went to hell. She was there and he was holding her and he remembered what it was like to feel whole again. He couldn't loose her. Not again. He knew he wouldn't survive it. So it was really, very unfortunate that within seconds of her return, he felt her heart stop beating. _

Several months earlier

The Doctor had imagined some variation of this moment countless times in his nightmares or while brooding after close calls, but now, as it happens, it's like nothing he could have imagined. It's so, so much worse. There are no goodbyes, no time to say all the things that need to be said, should have been said long ago. He's not holding her, not even with her. Not really. He can't offer her any kind of comfort or reassurance as she falls toward the void, toward Hell. Wrapped up in the horror of not only losing her, but losing her to _this_, all he can do is fix his gaze on her wide, panicked eyes and scream her name for the few seconds it takes her to be swallowed by the Void. Her piercing scream is cut off abruptly as the last flash of golden hair disappears into nothingness. Then Rose Tyler, his beloved companion, only exists in the past tense.

It takes him a couple more seconds to refuse this unacceptable reality.

He lets go of the magnaclamp, not to join her, but in a desperate attempt to save her from a fate far worse than death. He catches his upper body around the lever on his side with an _oomph_ he hardly feels the pain of. He plants his feet against the pull of the void and uses all his strength to pull the lever back towards the off position. If he can just prevent the void from closing, there's still a chance. A little jiggery-pokery and he'll reverse the vacuum and bring her back. He'll deal with the Daleks and Cybermen once Rose is safe. Any thoughts of what is best for the universe got sucked through the void along with her. Once he has her back, he'll sort it.

But the system didn't lie when it said the levers were locked into position. No amount of desperate pulling or pushing can get it to budge. And now his own grip is starting to slip.

No matter, with a little sonicing, he'll have it sorted. He tugs the cylindrical device out of his pocket, barely managing to keep a grip on the lever as he does so. He frantically fiddles with the settings, but as his grip slips again in a sharp jerk, the screwdriver leaps out of his hand. His feet fly from where they are braced as he fumbles after it, but the Void pulls it faster than even his Time Lord reflexes can act. Now it's just his hands keeping him from the gaping mouth of the Void and again, his biology fails him. He slips further, now barely holding on by his fingertips, but with Rose condemned to an eternity in Hell, he thinks he doesn't care that it looks like he's about to join her. He should just embrace the inevitable and let go.

But then the pull vanishes. He hears a crack and shattering sound as his sonic screwdriver crashes into the now very solid wall where the breach used to be and breaks into a thousand tiny pieces at the impact. He thinks there may be a metaphor in there somewhere, but his mind has slowed down, narrowed in until all he can think about is how he failed the one person he'd promised to always keep safe. It could have happened in any number of horrible ways, but this is the worst. Because she's not dead, not really. She's so much worse than dead.

For a moment he almost feels her again and is surprised to find himself pressing up against the white wall she disappeared through. He doesn't even remember crossing the room. He's sure he had been collapsed at the base of the lever just a moment ago. No matter, his brain dismisses the unimportant detail. He can just barely feel traces of her and he tries to reach out, to send her the telepathic message that he's sorry. He's _so_ sorry. That he'll miss her. That he'll always - he'll always…but the last of the breach seals up and the only part of her that is left is the scent that clings to him from their earlier embrace.

The Time Lord looses track of time. He must have, because the next he is aware, the light coming in through the large windows has a different slant to it. It's early evening. The sounds that bring him back to reality carry through the hallways outside the room. It's Jackie and Pete, and they're looking for someone who no longer exists.

He'd forgotten about them. Completely forgot that Pete was even in this universe, that the man had decided to stay, that him and Jackie had sought refuge from the pull of the void inside the TARDIS what must have been hours ago now. He'll have to tell them. _Oh Rassilon,_ he's going to have to tell Jackie Tyler that he broke his promise and her daughter is never coming home again. How can he possibly do that? How can he say the words that will make this real when he hasn't even been able to move from his huddled position against what is now just a white wall.

They must be in the room because he hears Jackie gasp. She knows. One look at him and she knows. He's primarily a touch telepath, but she is broadcasting her shock and grief so strongly that it cuts through him even at this distance. Still, he doesn't move other than to wince against Jackie's projection. He can't just yet.

It's only when Pete speaks - oh and with that tone of voice the man doesn't understand yet - that the Doctor finally turns to look at them, "Well Doctor, once again I'm impressed. Saved two universes in time for tea, eh. Where's Rose? We should celebr—"

The Doctor looks up at them as Pete starts to connect the dots that Jackie had figured out instantly. He'll know in a second, if he doesn't already. The Doctor wonders if the man would even care. That's rubbish, of course he would. He may not be her biological father, but he still _met_ her. And no one who met Rose Tyler could think the cessation of her existence to be anything less than tragic. For her, and for the universe. That's just the sort of amazing person she is…no, was. Was. The word reverberates through his brain. Rose Tyler…_was_.

The Doctor realizes he should say something. He manages to meet the disbelieving stare of the couple standing a few feet away and confirms their fears.

"She's…" he clears his tight throat and wipes his hands down his face, distantly noticing that it is unmarred by tears. Funny that. He feels like he should be crying.

"I…" he tries again, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry Jackie. She's gone. I - I tried -" he finds he can't continue. He needs to get up. Needs to untangle his long limbs and go comfort the woman who is silently shaking with sobs across the room, a shocked looking Pete wrapping one arm around her shoulders. He just can't seem to figure out how. And even if he does, he realizes he doesn't have the right to comfort Jackie, to share in her grief when he is the one who caused it. He is the one who broke his promise, who failed to protect her daughter from such a cruel fate.

But Jackie Tyler, that remarkable woman, shrugs out of Pete's half embrace and runs over to kneel down beside the Doctor. They wrap their arms around each other and share their grief, knowing that no one else in any universe could possibly fully understand what they've lost. He would have expected her to wail, expected to break down himself, but her sobs remain subdued and his dry face slackens in a mask of repressed grief. As he holds her he finds his voice and murmurs, "I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry, Jackie," over and over.

Time passes and Jackie's sobs turn into hiccups and then it's just silent tears streaming down her face. His awareness opens up from it's narrow focus of their loss. He reconnects with his time sense, notices Pete standing awkwardly against the wall, and even spares a thought or two for the immense clean-up job London and the rest of the world has ahead of them. They aren't the only family grieving today. For a moment he feels angry at those people for mourning someone other than Rose. He tramps the feeling down as irrational and slowly helps Jackie up to a standing position.

She finds her voice before he finds his, "She wouldn't want you to blame yourself, you know. And I reckon it's not your fault anyway," then after a pause, "Can you tell me? Can you tell me what happened, Doctor? I think…yeah, I think I need to know."

He opens his mouth to reply but Pete beats him to it, "Not here, yeah? It's been a few hours and clean-up crews will be in any time now. Best be gone before they show up, eh?"

The Doctor studies Pete for a second and notices his eyes are red and his voice came out tight when he spoke. The Doctor doesn't know if he feels angered or touched by this observation. Who is this man to mourn the daughter he'd rejected? But then, the Doctor supposes it would be worse if Pete simply didn't care.

"Yeah," he says in a gravely voice he doesn't quite recognize as his own. He gently guides Jackie towards Pete and then moves in front of the couple leading them through the wreckage of Torchwood back to his TARDIS. He prepares himself for the wave of grief he'll feel when he steps in through those blue doors. She lo…the Old Girl cared for Rose too.

Instead, when he steps into the TARDIS, he's enveloped in a comforting telepathic embrace. The grief is still there, but his magnificent ship has toned it down for now, for his sake. He pats a coral strut and murmurs his thanks. He still feels numb, like he's running mostly on autopilot, and doesn't think he could have confronted the TARDIS's unrestrained grief just yet. Like he can't confront his own.

Jackie and Pete are right behind him, and he gestures them towards the jump seat. He doesn't trust himself to be able to pilot a smooth ride right now.

"Your flat, Jackie?" he confirms while already working to launch them into the vortex.

Jackie has to clear her throat before she answers, "Yeah. Yeah, I reckon that's best."

The TARDIS must be helping him because the flight is smooth and quick. He sends another telepathic brush of thanks to his ship and follows it with an outward nod towards the door, letting Jackie know they've arrived.

Jackie leads Pete out to her apartment, the man's potential new home. The Doctor collapses onto the recently vacated jump seat. Part of him wants to follow them, but of course they wouldn't want him right now. Not when he broke his promise and ruined their lives. Or at least Jackie's life. And good luck to Pete starting something with the alternate version of his dead wife at a time like this.

He's about to push himself up and send his ship back into the vortex for a long, long time when the door creaks open. Jackie pokes her head in, "C'mon you. I'm making us a cuppa."

"But Jackie, I…" he starts. He what? He can't? He doesn't deserve to? "There's a mess to clean up," he finishes lamely in the biggest understatement of his life.

"Don't be silly. Clean-up's for later. Right now we need to be with family," she looks meaningfully at him. _Family_. He's surprised that the word seems right. Surprised that if she'll have him, he really does want to be in that little flat which was Rose's home for nineteen years and drink a cuppa with her mum and miss her so much he's surprised one of his hearts hasn't stopped beating, all in the company of people who are missing her too. For once, he doesn't want to be isolated with his grief. Maybe this time it's too much to bear alone.

He moves toward the door and follows Jackie into the flat. Pete is standing in the middle of the room, looking lost and overwhelmed and sad. The Doctor supposes that makes sense. The man woke up in one universe this morning, crossed to another, gained a sort-of family, fought a war, lost a sort-of daughter, and now finds himself in the alternate version of the flat he lived in twenty years ago with his late wife. The Doctor supposes that's enough to ruffle even a steady man like Pete. As soon as Pete notices the Doctor and Jackie enter the room, the Doctor see's him school his features and focus on Jackie. Well good. He's going to be there for her. The Doctor thinks she'll need it.

The Doctor half-heartedly offers to help Jackie with tea but she waves him off so he sinks down into a chair that sits opposite from the sofa. A few minutes later, Jackie hands him a steaming mug and sits with Pete with her own cup across from him. The Doctor notices Pete quickly grab and squeeze her free hand. Rose would have been so happy. He wishes she were here to see this.

"Alright then Doctor. What happened? If you can, please tell me. I need to know." Jackie speaks after a few moments of thick silence.

The Doctor was about to ask if Jackie is sure she wants the details, but one look at her face gives him his answer. He takes a breath and explains the events that led to her daughter's death. Well not death, but he isn't going to share that her daughter would likely be suffering for eternity in a place beyond their reach. Things are hard enough as it is. That is a burden he will keep for him alone to bear.

He tells them about how Rose's lever had slipped, how she'd been brilliant and brave and let go of her magnaclamp to lock the wonky lever back in place. How, in the end, she had saved two universes, maybe even all of them. How he wished it could have been his lever that slipped. Or maybe he doesn't say that last part out loud; he isn't sure. He tells them in the only way he can - dispassionately, as if it happened to someone else. If he tells it any other way, he doesn't think he can get through it. Not without his throat tightening too much to allow speech, him breaking down, him raging at the universe and devolving into self-hatred for letting this happen. He'll save that for later when Jackie doesn't have to watch.

Jackie and Pete listen. She has a white knuckled grip on Pete's hand and more silent tears dampening her cheeks. She doesn't make a sound though. Doesn't yell. Maybe she is saving that for later too.

When he finishes, or at least can't continue, she gets up to sit on the arm of his chair and gives him a tight squeeze around the shoulders. "Thanks, sweetheart. I needed to know. I needed to know why," she says, "And she was a hero, in the end. And you were with her. I think that's how she would have wanted it to be if she had to go. Though, I know she never wanted to leave you."

The Doctor only nods. He doesn't deserve her comfort and support, but he can't find it in him to do anything but accept it. Rose had been brilliant and he'd underestimated Jackie before if he had thought some of that didn't come from her. The fact that Rose's mum doesn't blame him could almost make him believe that it wasn't really all his fault. Almost.

By the time they finish their tea, it has been dark for a few hours. Jackie makes him promise with one last hug that he won't swan off overnight and then leads Pete back to her bedroom. The Doctor washes up from tea and quietly slips back into his ship. He had certainly intended on leaving Earth for a very, very long time, but he can't do that to Jackie if she wants him to stay. He ignores the part of himself that realizes that _he_ wants to stay too.

He is surprised to find himself utterly exhausted and wanting nothing more than to lose himself in sleep. He anticipates having nightmares, horrific ones, but for once, he thinks reality may be worse than whatever his subconscious could throw at him. He heads down the coral corridors intending to go to his room, but finds his feet take him instead to hers. He stands outside the dark wooden door for a long time, tracing the intricately carved border of roses with shaking fingers. Finally, he pushes open the door and steps in. He's embraced by the only things left of Rose - her scent, her belongings, and the small phycho-temporal presence that will linger around the Tardis for the next few days.

His knees go weak and he barely makes it the few steps to her bed before he collapses. It's then that he breaks down, then that the tears flow and the unearthly sound that is pain incarnate escapes from his lips. The rage isn't there though, nor the self-hatred. Maybe on some level he agrees with Jackie, but he thinks it's more likely that the pain of losing Rose, the pain of what he lost her to is simply too much to allow for anything else. He once again loses touch with time and curls up, desperately clinging to the last traces of his Rose and wishing it all to have just been a nightmare.

At some point he falls asleep, only to relive the scene in the lever room over and over again. He wakes up repeatedly, screaming her name until the TARDIS intervenes and soothes his mind into a dreamless sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The next few days were some of the worst he'd experienced in his long life. He hung around the Tyler's flat, helping rebuild and cleaning up after a few of the meals to give Jackie a break from the tedious chore of dishwashing. One of the internal walls of the flat had a large hole where "Granddad Prentice" probably blasted through it, and the Doctor found it soothing to get lost in the motions of patching it back up. He didn't use his sonic screwdriver or any other number of tools that could have fixed it in minutes, opting to do it the slow, primitive way. Jackie brought him tea and forced him to take a break ever few hours. They hardly talked, but he took comfort from her quiet presence. Rose was lucky to grow up with a woman like Jackie. Best not think about Rose though. Thinking of her would lead to a paralyzing sense of grief he could only confront each night in the privacy of the TARDIS.

When the wall was done, the Doctor moved onto the dishwasher, oven, and telly. He should have left, let the Tylers be, but he always found something else that needed fixing or upgrading to be a little more sonic. He couldn't leave until everything was sorted. Or at least that's why he told himself he stayed.

On the third day, Pete headed out to help rebuild the damaged city. The Doctor knew he should have joined Pete; his expertise could have been useful, but he didn't want to leave the flat just yet. He didn't want to have to interact with too many people and see the grief on strangers' faces from their own losses. Instead, he stayed with Jackie and continued to fiddle with her appliances and take breaks for tea and his favorite brand of biscuits she always kept in stock. He was working on the microwave when Jackie hollered to him from somewhere within her bedroom. He followed the noise and found her working at tugging a large box out of the depths of her closet.

"Oh good! Give me a hand, will ya?" she asked over her shoulder once he cleared his throat to announce his presence.

The Doctor stepped forward and easily lifted the box, although he took note that it would have been rather heavy for a human. He didn't question why Jackie was suddenly intent on moving the thing, just asked her where she wanted it.

"Over by the sofa on the coffee table," she directed. The Doctor was glad to hear some of that demanding spark back in her voice. Maybe she, at least, would someday be abel to heal.

He placed the box at the corner of the coffee table and noticed two steaming cups of tea had been set out at the other end. He guessed it was time for a break then. It was starting to bother him how easily he had been detaching from his time sense. Then again, letting the time slip by passively did seem to help in a way. Bandaid on a gunshot wound and all that. He sank down onto the sofa and started in on the steaming mug. Jackie sat beside him, but surprised him by breaking their usual routine of companionable silence.

"I wanted to show you these," she began as she rooted through the now opened box, "She would kill me if she knew, but suppose she's not here to be embarrassed…"

"Jackie I -" the Doctor started. This was going very much against his _don't think about Rose during the day_ policy.

"Oh none of that. You've been hangin' around here and eatin' my food and you'll do as I say for once. Here hold this," she shoved a few thick photo albums into his hands as he hastily put down his mug. He didn't point out that he'd been spending hours fixing up her flat and had been supplying nearly all the groceries from the TARDIS's stores. When it came to Jackie, there was nothing he could ever do to get out of the red as far as he was concerned. What were a few fancy appliances when he'd let her only child fall to her death.

Jackie lifted three more dusty albums out of the box and opened the one on top of the pile. She scooted closer to him so he could see. "Ah, this is the right one then. See, here I'm pregnant with her. About ready to pop, I am," she turned a few pages, "Oh! And there she is. Eighteen hours of labor, that one. Put up a fight right from the get go." He didn't need to see Jackie's face to know she was smiling. There was a light quality to her voice he hadn't heard since Canary Wharf. The Doctor stared intently at the wailing pink infant in a tired looking younger Jackie's arms. The original Pete must have been the one to take the picture because he wasn't in the frame. The Doctor realized this was a very human thing he and Jackie were doing - looking at photo albums and reminiscing, but he didn't feel the need to run. A few pages in, he even smiled at a baby girl covered in some orange goop humans liked to feed their young.

There was a story behind each picture that Jackie showed him. Some of them were funny, and they laughed together. Half way through the third album, he began sharing stories too. He told her about the time they'd had to rescue Jack from a harem of sirens and Rose had saved the day by reversing their seductive song through a recording device he'd had kicking around left over from a trip to the 90's. Turned out the song wasn't quite as appealing in reverse; In fact, it pained the sirens to hear it. Then he was on to how they had met Jack in the first place. Other stories followed easily, like how Rose had turned blue that one time she ate the wrong kind of candy floss at the carnival he took her to. It had taken days of detoxing with a bitter tasting alien juice before she became his pink and yellow human again. Jackie laughed along and asked questions when he forgot himself and went on a jargony ramble.

Once, when they had both fallen silent to take a few sips of their now cool tea, Jackie turned to him seriously, "Now don't take this the wrong way, because it's been lovely havin' you around the past few days, but don't you have things to do? Worlds to save an' all that? Seems like every story ends with you and my daughter settin' things to rights. If you have to go, I'd understand. Course you're welcome to stay as long as you like. Just thought I'd let you know that if -"

"Jackie," he cut her off with a soft voice, "It's fine. The corrupt governments, and plagues, and noseless dogs stuck in trees on the planet Barcelona can wait. I have a time machine, after all."

Jackie nodded, set down her tea and they went back to sharing stories over a table now cluttered with photo albums.

They were nearing the end of the fifth book when Pete came back from a long day in the city. It turned out he had connected with a few of the survivors from Torchwood One and they'd started to rebuild the organization the way it should have been run in the first place. The Canary Wharf building became the new center for the relief and rebuilding efforts of London. Pete cut his tired story short when he caught a glimpse of a photo of a cheeky blonde five-year-old in a bikini throwing sand at the camera.

"Is that her? Is that Rose?" he asked with a strange look on his face.

Jackie smiled and nodded as she traced little Rose's pink face with her finger.

Pete joined them, sitting on the other side of Jackie after she made them a light supper. He wanted to see the pictures from the beginning and the Doctor and Jackie were both happy to start over for Pete's benefit. They stayed up late into the night, finishing the last of the albums and sharing stories about Rose's recent and distant past. The Doctor was surprised to see the last few pages of the last album had a few photos from after Rose had started traveling with him. The Doctor had stopped and stared at them for a long time.

Seeming to read the question in his mind, Jackie explained, "Remember that time she forgot her camera here on a visit home? I took it to get the photos printed. I was going to make her an album of her own to take with her for her birthday, but never got around to it. Just stored them in here…" Jackie trailed off. "I was a little afraid of what I'd find getting' those pictures done up, to be honest. No telling what the two of you got up to in that blue box of yours. But turned out there was nothin' that couldn't be explained by me saying the pair of you liked to go to costume parties. I think the photo bloke thought you two were sci-fi fanatics or something. Not wrong, was he?" Jackie snorted a laugh.

"Jackie we weren't - we weren't like that," the Doctor tried to explain, "I mean we never -"

"Oh none of that. You made her happy, and that's what's important. And I'm glad I took the risk to have the photos printed because now I have these," she caressed the page, "Got to see a bit of that fantastic life she was livin' with you."

The Doctor found he had to clear the tightness out of his throat before he could speak, "Er Jackie, there's more. Pictures that is. Lot's more, actually. Rose and I weren't ones for carting cameras around, more fun to be in the moment and all that, but Mickey and Jack were like the bloody paparazzi. I can print them up for you in the TARDIS. If you want," he shrugged on the last words.

"Oh that'd be lovely!" Jackie looked up at him with watery eyes but a wide smile, "Thank you Doctor. Yeah, that'll be great."

Jackie closed the last album and her and Pete went about putting them carefully back in the box as the Doctor cleaned up the dishes. Over the light clattering of dishes and cutlery, he could overhear Pete speaking in the living room, "You have videos too Jacks?"

"Oh yeah that was from…well, it must have been bout ten or so years ago. I was…oh hell you weren't here were you? I was seeing this bloke James and he worked for one of those video stores. He had a camy-corder thingy and let me borrow it for a few days here and there, birthdays and the like. Took me hours to learn how to use it," she laughed, "And I haven't seen the films in years. They aren't compatible with the new VCR, I don't think. Or that's what Mickey said when I asked him to hook it all up."

The Doctor poked his head back into the living room. "I may be able to help with that. I'm sure the TARDIS has something that can play them."

"Oh thanks sweetheart. Tomorrow yeah? I'm a bit knackered now. But it was nice. Thank you, Doctor, Pete. It was nice to talk about her and smile and laugh - remember back to years ago."

"It was my pleasure, Jackie," the Doctor was surprised to find himself grinning back at her.

Pete was silent and the Doctor thought again at what a strange situation the man was in and how well he was handling it. Maybe he deserved a second chance. As they all went their separate ways for the night, he heard the man mutter to Jackie, "I wish I had been there. I wish I had gotten a chance to know her, to see her grow up."

That night the Doctor was still tormented with thoughts of Rose's suffering and plagued by nightmares, but now his dreams were interspersed with some of the good memories he'd shared and learned about that evening. He'd never again be whole, but there was a chance he may survive.


	3. Chapter 3

Over the next few weeks, the Doctor started taking short trips again. At first, it was just to stay in present day London and pop in to help Pete over at the reorganized Torchwood. Pete had been elected the new Director, no surprise there. He was easily the most qualified human for the job. The Doctor spent several days going through the vaults categorizing alien artifacts and helping dispose of the dangerous bits. A short trip to dump them into a dying sun of an unpopulated galaxy did the trick. It was the first time the Doctor had been back out among the stars since he'd lost her, and he took a few extra hours to sit with his feet hanging out the doorway as the TARDIS floated through space. It didn't have nearly the calming effect he had hoped. He had no one to share the beauty with. His hands were cold without the warmth of hers. And really, who was he to enjoy anything when Rose no longer could. It took him a few more hours before he could go back to Torchwood and finish his work there.

Overall, he wasn't doing well. Neither was Jackie. They both missed Rose and it colored everything they did. Sometimes it didn't even seem real. He'd jump up from tinkering at the TARDIS with a crazy anecdote and find that the person who he'd hoped to make laugh wasn't there. He'd reach for her hand only to find empty space beside him. She had been lost so abruptly and there had been no closure. No treasured last words or even a silly human ceremony. There was a monument to the fallen planned - her name would be carved on the list of the dead - but it wasn't enough - her name hidden among hundreds. She deserved more. If he couldn't save her from her terrible fate, he could at least honor her memory.

His first trip in space he did alone. But for his first trip in time, he was accompanied by Jackie and Pete. Jackie whined for the whole duration of the flight, threatening him with anything from dismemberment to force feeding him pears if they ended up on Pluto. The trip went smoothly though. Well, smooth enough. Weeeell, none of them ended up sprawled on the grating, at least.

They landed at the bottom of a grassy hill on the outskirts of London. The Doctor led the way to the top of the hill and stopped in the shade of a tree in full blossom. He turned to Jackie and Pete once they had caught up with his longer strides.

"I hope this is ok. I had it made last week and we just jumped eight months to the future once it was placed and the flowers had a chance to bloom. There was a…there was a bit of a waiting list as you can imagine with so many lost that day. Anyway, I made sure this was close enough that you could visit, but not in the middle of the city. Thought it was nicer out here. Especially now, with all the tress blooming." He explained as he tugged on his ear.

Jackie sniffed, brows furrowing "Smells like…apples?"

"Oh, that's the grass. Applegrass. I had some seeds left over from this planet we had visited and Rose had liked it so…"

Jackie wrapped him in a one armed hug, "Yeah, I reckon that's just mad enough to be perfect. Thank you Doctor."

A hoarse, "Yeah," was all he could manage.

They looked at the words etched onto the smooth grey stone:

_Rose Marion Tyler_

_1986-2007_

"What are those circle thingies?" Jackie asked gesturing to a design below the engraved years.

"Just a decoration," the Doctor lied. Jackie let him get away with it. It wasn't like he could translate it adequately anyway. "And I left a space for you to add something, if you want. Just let me know what you want to say and I'll carve it with my sonic."

"Blimey there's a setting for everything," Jackie observed.

The Doctor nodded with a small smile, "Yeah. Just about."

"I don't know what to say. Just a few words to sum up -" Jackie broke off in a hiccup that heralded in a wave of tears. He hadn't seen her cry in days and each soft sob cut straight through him. He fought down the lump in his own throat. He always knew he'd have to do this someday, ever since he'd promised Rose she could spend the rest of her life with him, but he'd hoped it wouldn't have had to be so soon.

"Beautiful. Brave. Beloved." It was Pete who spoke the words.

The Doctor and Jackie both gaped at him as the man shrugged self-consciously.

"Yeah," Jackie hiccuped, "Yeah I reckon that's perfect. What do you think Doctor?"

He cleared his throat roughly, "Yeah. I'll just - er - get to it then."

He knelt down on her empty grave and carved the words into the smooth stone. Once he was finished he brushed the dust away and stood back up next to Jackie. Pete had left mumbling something about giving them some time alone and was already half way back to the TARDIS. Jackie grabbed the Doctor's hand and they stood there for several long minutes.

"Does…does it help? Does it make it feel any better?" The Doctor asked quietly.

"Naw. Not really. But s'nice. 'S good. Thank you, Doctor." Jackie responded somberly. He squeezed her hand and then left to follow Pete back to the TARDIS. Jackie would come when she was ready.

Once he had dropped them back off at the flat with a promise to come visit soon, the Doctor let the TARDIS drift through space once again. He'd been looking for some amount of peace for weeks now, but it wasn't coming. He'd been foolish to think that a carved stone over an empty grave would make any difference. Maybe it would have if she was truly dead. Although, she could be. Dead, that is. He didn't really know what would happen to a human trapped in the void. What he knew about it was mostly based on stories the boys had shared late at night in the Academy residence halls. Some said that the void was nothing. The absence of anything that gave existence texture or meaning. Others said that it was the opposite, that it was everything at once. Either way, the void was supposed to cause unspeakable pain for any who were trapped within. The Doctor debated looking into it further. He wasn't sure what he would find if he did. Would knowing more about her fate help him move on? Did he even want to move on? Did he deserve to?

He was still debating internally, but his body had seemed to take matters into it's own hands, moving him to the monitor on the console. He was just about to scan through some archives on the subject when he was startled by a loud shriek.

He spun around to find a very angry woman dressed up like she was an Earth bride. _What?! _

"What!?"

The Doctor headed back to the TARDIS after dropping Donna off. She'd invited him to stay for Christmas dinner, but he had other plans for the evening. It would be Jackie's first Christmas without Rose, not counting the year Rose went "missing," and her first with Pete 2.0. Though it had only been a day or two for the Doctor, it would have been several weeks for Jackie and Pete. He hadn't intended to stay away for nearly that long, but then again, he hadn't intended on an angry bride appearing in the console room. An angry bride with a hell of a slap and a voice that reached decibels that were outlawed on seven thousand and sixty-three planets.

But in the end, he'd come to like the fiery Donna Noble. She'd been through a lot for a human that day, but had risen to the occasion and then some. She was clever and empathetic and would have made a brilliant companion if they had both been in a different place. She even saved his life when he'd gotten carried away with the Racnoss. Not that he was sure he was grateful that he wasn't at the bottom of the Thames right now. Another genocide was on his conscience and the running and adventure that provided a welcome distraction in the moment, now made him miss Rose all the more keenly because she hadn't been there beside him. If all he had to look forward to was pain and all he could offer was destruction, he didn't have a lot of incentive to keep going. He didn't think he had it in him to actively seek out his end, but standing there under the cascading water, all he had needed was to let it happen…

A hint of a carol song drifted to him through the snow and his dark thoughts shifted to last Christmas with Rose, Mickey, and Jackie. Mickey had stayed back in Pete's world as a leader in Torchwood and Rose was…gone, but there was still Jackie. Somehow she'd become family through Rose, just one of Rose's many legacies. Christmas wouldn't be the lighthearted event of last year, but he found himself still wanting to spend the rest of the evening at that little flat on the Powell Estates.


	4. Chapter 4

It was a long time before the Doctor traveled properly again. Well, it seemed long to him anyway. Even though he was tired, so very tired, being in one place for several weeks wore on him. When he'd gone to visit for Christmas, he'd intended for it to be just a brief trip, but he ended up staying on at Jackie's invitation. He'd spend his days and most of his nights helping out around the flat and puttering around the TARDIS, finding odd jobs to keep him busy. Then, one day, the TARDIS alerted him to some strange readings coming from the heart of London. After enough badgering from his sentient ship, he'd tracked them to a hospital in the nicer part of town. He checked himself in as a patient and was shocked to see some of the readouts from the small battery of tests a band of medical students ran on him. To them, he probably seemed the picture of health, but for a Time Lord the results were near embarrassing. Once he got back to his ship, he'd have to run his own scans and start thinking about taking better care of himself. He hadn't bothered to look in a mirror for who knew how long and he was a little uneasy at what he would find. If the test results were anything to go by, he probably looked a mess.

One of the students who stood out in that way that some people did on occasion had proven to be very clever and brave indeed once the hospital ended up on the moon. Martha Jones, her name was, and he decided he quite liked her company. When his mad plan to save the suffocating humans in the hospital involved him being nearly drained by a plasmavore, she'd revived him with her last bit of consciousness. This time, when the Doctor was pulled back from death, he found he was more relieved than disappointed. Perhaps that was an improvement, he congratulated himself. Still, he really needed to get out of the habit of needing to be saved by humans he'd just met. Not all of them would be as smart and resourceful as Martha Jones, as animated and strong-willed as Donna and…well…no one would ever be like Rose.

The ending to that adventure was a happy one, as far as things could be nowadays for him. The plasmavore was captured by the Judoon and the hospital was returned to earth with the humans within no worse off save for a few lingering symptoms of oxygen deprivation. Martha had found him as he was ducking out the back exit and on a whim he invited her along. Just for one trip. Just for a thank you for saving his life and the lives of everyone in that hospital. But as one trip turned into two and then three, it became more and more apparent he still wasn't ready for this. More importantly, he was still far too broken and reckless to have another person's life as his responsibility. Perhaps he had always been ill equipped for such a thing. Perhaps that was part of his problem.

In the end, he'd thanked Martha Jones, his new friend, heartily before leaving her behind to tend to her patients. She would be a brilliant doctor, of that he was sure. Maybe, someday in the future he'd even look her up. But for now, he decided that some independent traveling was in order. He'd been bumming around Earth for far too long, trying to soak up traces of a lost human girl by haunting the neighborhoods where she had grown up. It was no life for a Time Lord, even a broken old one like him. He belonged in the stars, tending to the universe and exploring it's wonders. He stopped in to bid Jackie and Pete a farewell, and after being stuffed full of biscuits, he headed out, his ship singing happily at the change of pace and scenery.

The traveling helped. Sometimes. Just like with the Racnoss and the hospital on the moon with the Judoon, the excitement of adventure and the demands to his intellect helped him escape his grief for small bits of time. But it was always waiting for him at the end of the day or in those scattered quiet moments. He still missed her. _So_ much. And it ate at him to know that she could still be hurting, in unimaginable agony, even as he ran through each new adventure.

He stopped by frequently to visit Jackie and Pete. When Rose had been traveling with him, she'd had to beg and use her pouty look before he relented for a trip to Jackie's. But now, he was drawn to that corner of London and couldn't seem to go more than a few weeks without dropping in. He was always welcome, though he still couldn't see how he deserved the hospitality. Over the next few months, he watched the relationship blossom between Jackie and Pete. At some point, they had started wearing wedding rings, though Pete told him quietly that they'd skipped a formal ceremony. "No need when we're already sort of married, yeah? And it still doesn't feel right to have any sort of big celebration."

Then, five months into the Doctor's lonely traveling, he walked through the door with Rose's spare key to find a nervous looking Jackie. She'd fussed over him even more than usual and sent Pete out on some errand the Doctor suspected was contrived. Was this it? Was this when she finally realized he didn't deserve a single second of her time, let alone her regard?

Biting her lip in a very Rose-like gesture that made his hearts ache, Jackie fidgeted in front of the Doctor as they sat drinking one of her famous cuppas. He was about to entreat her to just tell him already when she blurted, "I'm pregnant."

The Doctor paused, cup halfway to his mouth. After an embarrassing length of time, he managed to snap his jaw closed and set the cup back down on it's saucer.

"That's…er Jackie, that's…" suddenly he was grinning, and he could feel a happy hum spread throughout his body, "that's _brilliant_!"

"Really?" Jackie eyed him dubiously.

"Oh, of course! Of course it's brilliant! More Tylers on the way!" Taking in the look on her face he added, "Er…isn't it?"

Jackie let out a long breath and finally seemed to relax. A small smile played at her lips, making her seem years younger, "Yeah. Yeah, it is. Pete's over the moon, of course. I guess he always wanted kids in the other universe, but it never quite worked out."

"Congratulations Jackie, really," the Doctor said as he got up from the table to offer Jackie a tight hug.

"Thanks," she said, finally beaming as was warranted for such good tidings. Then she blushed and cast her gaze to the side, "I'm sorry about before. I…well I rather thought you would be…oh I don't know, cross? Or hurt? Disappointed, maybe?" Jackie looked up and met his gaze as she added fiercely, "But this baby isn't a replacement. No one and nothin' could ever replace her, Doctor. This wasn't even planned! But…it sorta feels right, all the same."

"Oh Jackie," the Doctor let out a breath as Jackie's initial strange behavior suddenly made sense, "Of course it feels right, because it is. I know you would never even think of replacing Rose or any such nonsense. If you even tried you'd be undertaking an impossible task. This little one you've got cookin' here is its own little person with its own brilliant life ahead. I'm…I'm happy for you, Jackie - you and Pete. Truly," he told her genuinely. Then about a thousand giddy questions started racing through his mind, "When are you due? When did you find out? Is it a boy or a girl? What are you going to name it? If it's a boy, you'll name him Doctor, of course? Where will - "

"Oi! Slow down, slow down!" Jackie laughed, "I'm only two months gone, so it's too early to tell if it'll be a boy or girl, and no I'm not gunna be tested like a lab rat in that box of yours. I'll do things the proper Earth way, thank you very much. Haven't really thought of names yet either…Blimey, I really didn't think you'd be so excited."

The Doctor grinned and felt real enthusiasm for the first time since…well in a long time.

Jackie continued, "It's all a bit new and strange, to be honest. Me, havin' a baby at 39!" the Doctor was pretty sure Jackie was actually at least forty, "I'm gunna be one of those old mums!" she wrinkled her nose as if the idea was distasteful, "Ah well, I love the little one to bits already. Can't wait to tell 'im stories about his big sister," Jackie looked up at him, "And he's gunna need to hear some from you too. Can't have Rose's little sibling not knowing what a hero his big sister was."

"Quite right," the Doctor said, some of the enthusiasm ebbing at the thought of this brilliant new life never getting to know its big sister. Rose should be here. She should be here to see this, to share in the joy that was filling up the small flat with the hope of new beginnings and new life.

"So you'll still be poppin' your head in now and then?" Jackie asked him, stirring him out of the melancholy drift of his thoughts.

"As often as you want," the Doctor replied honestly.

"Good. Oh Doctor, this kid is going to be so loved. And an alien for a big brother! What a lucky little tyke, eh?"

The Doctor didn't bother to correct Jackie. No matter how many times he told her that Rose and he weren't "like that," she still treated him almost as a son-in-law. But if he were honest with himself he really didn't mind. If all that was left was hints of what could have been, he'd hold on to those threads will all his might.

The Doctor stayed for the rest of that evening, celebrating the new Tyler with both Jackie and Pete once the man had gotten back with a giant peanut butter and strawberry milkshake for Jackie. (So apparently not such a contrived errand, then. Jackie was quite the demanding mother-to-be, the Doctor observed over the course of that evening. He met Pete's eyes often, silently wishing the man all the luck in the universe.)

Then it was back to traveling. The idea of another Tyler on the way wasn't a cure all for his enduring heartache, but it was at least something to look forward to. As Jackie had said, someone would need to tell Rose's little sibling about what a hero its big sister was.

All in all, the Doctor thought that things were slowly, oh so slowly getting just the slightest bit better.

But then he went to Mars and everything fell apart.


	5. Chapter 5

It started off as just another adventure, him wandering around a dusty red planet in his orange space suit, taking in the desolate scenery. He set a course walking toward the red sunset that would remind him of Gallifrey if he thought too hard about it. He was surprised, but not overly so when he stumbled upon the domed and branching base at the bottom of a shallow crater. Mars was the first place those industrious little humans had colonized after their moon. And by the look of it, he'd stumbled on the early days of the process. Brilliant! He couldn't wait to snoop around!

Before he knew it, he was amongst the astounded crew, even managing a joke when a stern lady with a gun asked him for his name, rank, and intention. Although, he supposed he'd exaggerated when he'd listed "fun" as his intention. "_Looking for a distraction so I don't have to think too much about anything,"_ would have been more accurate. Still, his babbling charm had just about won over some of the less stubborn of the crew and he was really starting to enjoy himself when he found out when and where he was.

Bowie Base One, November 21st, 2059.

He tried to leave then, he really did. He looked into the faces of these doomed people and retreated, offering no more than an apology they didn't yet understand.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry with all my hearts, but it's one of those very rare times when I've got no choice," _Like when I lost Rose,_ he added miserably to himself, _and Gallifrey_, _and all the others._

He wanted to go back and rewrite that day at Canary Wharf with every fiber of his being, had thought about it often in the months since he'd lost Rose to the Void, but that was as much of a fixed event as what would happen soon at Bowie Base One.

He was powerless here, and he _loathed_ it.

Then his hasty escape was blocked and he seemed doomed to stay on to witness the tragedy first hand. Things only got worse as he worked alongside the crew, as he came to know and care about the people who would all perish because the same rubbish Laws of Time that always held him back.

Adelaide turned out to be the person, and the hero he'd always imagined her to be. She'd told him of the Cyberman that had spared her life during the invasion at Canary Wharf - another reminder of that horrible day that he had no desire to face so directly. Another reminder of how useless he truly was.

He cried through his apologies when Adelaide trapped him in the airlock chamber and forced him to tell her what would happen to her and her team. When he realized that it would be his fault when she took option five and blew up the base, the walls of the already tight chamber seemed to close in on him even further. By telling her what he knew, he gave her the idea to blow up the base. It was all his fault, and he was powerless to stop it. He couldn't even wipe at the tears that stained his face thanks to the thick glass of the spacesuit helmet. In the end, Adelaide asked for the help she knew he couldn't give, cursed him, and set him free. A fate much kinder than he deserved.

And then…he just walked away. Walked away as he listened to the screams of the crew perishing one by one. He kept walking until an explosion knocked him off his feet. As he flew through the dusty air, every hurt, every regret, every injustice he'd ever suffered played in a symphony that drowned out even the roar of the fiery wreckage surrounding him.

All at once he could take no more of it.

So he wouldn't.

He landed roughly amongst dirt and debris, but the physical impact was nothing compared to the mental impact of the momentous shift that taken place inside of him.

His seemingly boundless pain morphed into fury; his regrets became rage colored determination. The Doctor descended into madness with a profound sense of giddy exhilaration. He realized with perfect clarity that he didn't have to do this, didn't have to walk away and add more deaths to his already heavy conscious. Yes, there were Laws of Time, but who was left to champion them other than himself?

No one, that's who. It was just him. Alone. Always alone.

But not for much longer.

He turned back towards the base and set off to change history.

Where the screams of the damned had serenaded his retreat, whirling thoughts of manic hope beckoned him back toward the base. He'd save the crew, or at least what was left of it. Hell, maybe he'd go back in time afterward and save them all. There was nothing to stop him. Nothing standing in his way. So why should he let those innocent people die?

He shouldn't. He _wouldn't_.

And then, when he was done with a good days work, he'd unlock every failsafe on the TARDIS and go back to rescue Rose. He'd been a daft coward letting her suffer all this time when he had the power to undo it. He'd have her back. He'd have Rose back before the next sunrise of this or any other bloody planet. And Rassilon help anyone who stood in his way!

Pulse thundering through his head in a four-beat staccato, he ran back to the base and quickly organized the dwindling crew to help re-stabilize the section of the base where they had been cowering. Several times, he thought even his newfound power wouldn't be enough to save them, but no, he was the Time Lord Victorious and he would not be stopped. As he used the robot to pilot the TARDIS to save them all, Adelaide had looked at him with such fear and condemnation. But what did he care? She was no Lord of Time; what did she know? She'd be grateful in the end, once the shock of it all had worn off.

The TARDIS materialized at the base just in time for him to usher in the three remaining crew members before the base exploded. And now, the crew of the legendary Bowie Base One would be alive to live as heroes back on Earth, as it should have been all along. The Doctor laughed madly as he piloted the TARDIS, making a perfect landing outside Adelaide's house because that was just the sort of day he was having.

Of course, the woman couldn't be bothered to thank him. He'd had to get that from the two younger humans who went off into the night, faces full of wonder at being alive and back on their home planet. They'd have dinner with their families tonight, as he would with his Rose. He grinned widely at the thought. He rather thought he'd take her out to chips. Not even Adelaide's harsh words of condemnation could wipe the smile off his face as he pictured it.

"Is there nothing you can't do?" she asked him as she left for her flat.

"Not anymore," the Doctor smirked, reveling in this freedom.

They parted ways and the Doctor headed back to his TARDIS, each step lighter as he ran through all the wrongs he could now put to right, starting with the woman he loved. There was no sense in censoring his feelings for her now. He could have it all, and that meant the fears that had held him so restrained before had dissolved. He loved her. Blimey, he _loved_ her. And now he was on his way to get her back and tell her so to her beautiful face.

So lost in his thoughts was he that nearly nothing could have given him pause. Nothing except the unmistakable zing of a laser gun coming from Adelaide's flat.

The very turning of the Earth seemed to stop in that moment.

_No. _

The Doctor froze, unable to breathe as it all came crashing back down on him. He spun around towards the flat Adelaide had disappeared into just seconds before. The flat where she'd just taken her own life to fix the Doctor's unforgivable mistake. Now, the images flashing through his head were of the altered news articles taking into account the mysterious suicide of a brave woman who was supposed to be leading a team on Mars.

Adelaide's words reverberated through his whole being, "_I don't care who you are! The Time Lord Victorious is wrong!"_

And…she had been right.

Oh Rassilon, she had been right! The Doctor sunk to the ground as the magnitude of his indiscretion finally hit home. He'd lost the right to the power he claimed to have over the universe, and with it the chance to save Rose. But to think he'd ever truly had that power in the first place had been a delusion of a half-mad mind. Still, his hearts ached as if he were losing her all over again.

The Doctor let out a strangled sob and collapsed into the snow at the base of the TARDIS, "I've gone to far," he said aloud. Breathing raggedly and body shaking, he only barely made it back into the TARDIS and sent her into the vortex. Then he was collapsing again, this time onto the jump seat. "Rose," he said brokenly and then buried his head in his hands and wept.

The Doctor had nearly ended it all that night, nearly taken the active steps to at least regenerate that he'd only been passively chasing after for months now. It was like the aftermath of the Time War all over again, him seeking out his own destruction behind the guise of adventure and heroics. But this time? This time it had gone so very wrong. His guilt only intensified when he acknowledged that even though he knew he had been so, _so_ wrong, he deeply missed the hope he'd felt for that short hour when he'd thought everything could be fixed.

He sat on the jumpseat and sobbed for a long time. It was only due to the TARDIS's relentless telepathic compulsion, that he stumbled to his bed hours later. He was despondent, beyond any comfort or flicker of hope. His only consolation was that Rose wasn't here to see him like this, to see what he had become. Donna had told him that he needed someone with him, someone to stop him, and obviously she had been right. But how could he ever let anyone other than Rose fill that role. He couldn't, that was the problem. It was a paradox, one that was beyond even a Reaper's ability to sort.

The pain became so complete that the Doctor felt he would never be able to even move again. And maybe he shouldn't.

The soft clink of glass made him turn his head and he saw a small syringe lying on his bedside table. A gift from the TARDIS. He didn't know what was in it, and didn't much care as he slid it into the vein in his arm and depressed the plunger. Anything to just get away from this unbearable feeling. Even as his eyes started to drift shut with the addition of the fast acting sedative to his bloodstream, his agony and guilt continued to eat at him. He figured it would follow him into his dreams as well.

But it didn't.

For once, the Doctor's dreams were a beautiful escape from the horrors of reality. In them, he reunited with a grinning Rose over and over again. Being with her, even in a dream helped chase away his monsters and even his darkest of thoughts. He surrendered to the dreams, taking Rose to all the beautiful and amazing places he'd never gotten the chance to show her in real life. The TARDIS hummed in the background, trying to tell him something that he couldn't quite comprehend.

The Doctor woke ten hours later with an enormous headache and a sense of determination flickering around the edges of his mind where he thought there should only be pain and guilt. He could thank the TARDIS's interfering for the former, but the later? He closed his eyes and sifted through his mind to find it's origin. Ah, yes, the Old Girl was behind that too, showing him what he'd been avoiding for too long. There had been a definite theme to his dreams last night. And as the grogginess of his drugged sleep faded, his determination took direction, found a purpose. It was no surprise that, as always, that purpose was _her_.

He needed to find out what happened to Rose.

The thought was equally terrifying and seductive. On some level, he had known the necessity of this for months, but had been too afraid to face it head on. He had come close, that time in the TARDIS, before Donna's abrupt arrival. And then, coward that he was, he'd used that, and then any other excuse to ignore what he had to do. He'd suspended himself in this place of not knowing if Rose were dead or alive, at peace or suffering beyond imagination, too afraid of what he would find if he investigated. But in the end, the not knowing was tearing him apart and making him a danger to anyone who's live he touched.

He could no longer travel on alone. Yesterday's events made that painfully and abundantly clear. Yet he knew he would never be able to take on a traveling companion with Rose's fate unsettled. He had run his whole life - run from what he saw in the untempered schism, run from companions so he didn't have to see them age, run from responsibility and consequences to keep the darkness of living too long at bay. But now, it was time for him to stop running and instead seek the knowledge that had the power to ruin him. _Or to save him, _the Doctor recognized his ship's influence in that last thought.

Amongst all his churning thoughts and fears was a small, but persistent ember of hope. He'd always said that knowledge is power, and what if this particular knowledge he sought was what would give him the power to bring her back. Not the Time Lord Victorious' power fueled by madness and rage, but the power of intellect and perseverance, of working _with_ the laws of the Universe instead of against them. If nothing else, he knew one thing for certain: if it was even remotely within his power, he'd see his Rose back from the Void. And for that, for getting through any of this, he needed help.


	6. Chapter 6

The Doctor's hands shook as he piloted the TARDIS. What he was about to do would be picking at the threads of his carefully reconstructed sanity. He'd be breaking all kinds of his personal rules - going back to see a past companion, pursuing instead of running, fighting when there was a good chance he would be crushed by failure. But as he had recently realized, it was the only choice left to him.

The TARDIS landed with her usual thump. He felt her unease about being here, the unease he shared, but through their bond, they fought the feeling together. He also knew that his senses were somewhat deadened to the feeling of wrongness because he was just so _tired_. He really was at the end of his reserves. So much so that he stumbled more than walked out the doors and into a large open room.

"Blimey! You look like hell, mate!" an unfamiliar voice greeted him, "Jack had us thinking you were some kind of superhero but -"

"Shut it Owen," the Doctor couldn't help but grin weakly at the sound of his friend's voice, "Go…I don't know, order a pizza or hunt some weevils or something." The Doctor watched Jack Harkness turn to the rest of the small group convened around where the Doctor had landed the TARDIS. Jack was firm, but significantly less annoyed when he spoke to the rest of them, "That goes for all of you. Doc and I have some catching up to do."

"If that's what you want to call it…" Owen mumbled.

Jack just continued right over him, making the Doctor think that this Owen character was a habitual arse, "You know how to reach me, but only if it's an emergency. Got it?"

There was a murmured assent and nods all around. It seemed that Jack was the leader of his own little team. The Doctor wasn't surprised, although he did wonder how Jack managed working with humans, considering his immortality. Really, the Doctor knew very little about what Jack was up to or even where he'd landed, other than that it appeared to be some kind of high tech warehouse on Earth. He'd just traced Jack's unique signature and landed as close as the TARDIS could get him.

Once the others had cleared the area, Jack stepped forward. The two men's gazes met and the Doctor could tell instantly that Jack already knew about Rose. It made the Doctor's stomach clench unpleasantly, though he was glad that it wouldn't be up to him to bear the news to his old friend.

"So it's true then?" Jack said heavily, sadness rolling off of him, "I read her name on the list of the dead, but I'd still hoped…"

"Yeah," the Doctor said horsely. This is why he didn't do this. This is why he didn't go back. Because it was _hard_. "I…Jack, I need help." Each word hurt as he said it.

Jack looked the Doctor up and down, but it wasn't in his usual flirtatious manner. The other man was just talking him in. The Doctor spared a thought to wonder if he should have made some effort to put himself together before he came here. Then he dismissed the idea. It would have just been another stalling tactic, another chance to let something new come up and distract him.

"Yeah, you really do. Owen was right, you look like hell, Doc." Jack observed, "Tea in the TARDIS or something stronger in my office?

"The second one," the Doctor said, wishing feverently that he could feel some effect from Earth alcohol.

Jack nodded and led the way with the Doctor following silently. Once they were in his office, Jack shut the door, pulled over a chair for the Doctor, and started rummaging through his desk drawers. After a few moments, he placed a large bottle of amber liquid on the desk with a plunk that seemed to echo in the stillness of the room. Both men were hesitant to be the first one to speak.

Jack overcame the reluctance before the Doctor, filling the silence with a flurry of questions, "Are you ok? No, sorry that's stupid. Of course you're not. What can I do? No, wait. First, what the hell happened? No. Fuck! Doc, I don't even know what to say…" The Doctor could hear a thousand more questions as Jack trailed off, _why did you leave me? What happened to me? How could you let her die?_

The Doctor sighed, "I…I wish I knew where to begin. I wish I could answer any one of those questions, including the one's you were too decent to voice."

More silence. And the Doctor didn't miss the brief wave of disappointment that flashed over Jack's face. Well what did the Captain expect? He never was good with…with feelings and such. He'd come here. He'd asked Jack for help. Wasn't that enough?

"Jack I don't know what you want me to say. I…I…" and then, quite suddenly and to his great surprise, he did find the words. No, not just find them, he _released_ them. It was like the cork had popped off a shaken bottle of champaign and everything was spilling out, "I…I lost her," he started in a voice that sounded broken even to his own ears, "It's all my fault, you know. The one person I wanted safe more than anyone in the universe, and she's gone because of me. I should have made her go with Jackie to the TARDIS. She would have been safe there. Or better yet, I could have sent all three of them back to Pete's world where nothing from this bloody mad life of mine could ever hurt her!"

Jack sat and listened, though he couldn't possibly understand everything the Doctor was talking about, "It all just…happened so _fast_! One minute we were laughing over Void dust and the next…the next her lever slipped and she, _damn her_, she had to go and be a hero. Never mind how dangerous it was. Never mind how much I _needed_ her. She had to go and fix the lever and…and then she was falling. She'd let go. No. _No!_ She didn't let go! It wasn't her fault! She tried, I know she tried. But the pull was too strong and she couldn't…The pull was _so_ strong, Jack, like nothing I'd ever…and all I could do was watch as she fell."

The Doctor thought he might be crying, but couldn't seem to stop or even slow down, "She just…she fell, Jack. She fell into the Void. Into hell. It's the worst thing that could ever…She deserved _so_ much more! So much better! She was…Oh Rassilon!"

The Doctor took a breath and wiped ineffectually at his face before plowing forward once again, "And all I could bloody do was watch. Some Lord of Time I am, eh? She screamed the whole way, my name, I think. And now she's dead. Or in hell. Or blimey, who knows? I just know that I lost her, and I loved her, and I miss her. I miss her _so_ much. And it just…it just _hurts_. Every single part of me, every single second."

He had to take several ragged breaths before he could continue. Jack handed him a handkerchief, but otherwise remained a stoic witness to the mess of a Time Lord he'd become. Finally, when the Doctor had more control he continued, "I'm not alright, Jack. I've…done things. And it all went so wrong. I reckon I'm somewhat of a danger right now," the Doctor chuckled darkly. "I figured if anyone could handle me, it would be you. You can hold me back if I get out of hand. You can tell me that I've gone mad when I tell you what I came here for. Because it's not just to…I don't know, blubber over drinks?" The Doctor looked up from his tightly clasped hands to stare directly into Jack's red-rimmed eyes, "I want to bring her back."

Finally, Jack moved. He let out a deep breath through his teeth, took another one in and then spoke. But it wasn't what the Doctor had expected. "Would it really be possible?"

The Doctor was caught off guard. He'd expected condemnation or pity or even scorn, but not…cautious entertainment of the idea. "To be honest, I have no idea," he said, "I don't even know what really happened to her once she was sucked through the breach. But I need to know. And…I'm not sure I trust myself with that information once I find out. And if there is a way, well I figured I'd need your help for that as well. I just can't be alone anymore." He said the last in a whisper that was pathetic even to his own ears.

Jack took a moment to organize his thoughts. He finally got around to pouring out a small tumbler of drink for the Doctor and himself and took several sips before he spoke.

"You know I'll help, if I can," he started simply, "And you know I loved Rose. But I won't put this world in jeopardy to do so."

"Good," the Doctor nodded. That was what he was here for. He needed someone to stop him if he wasn't able to stop himself.

"I have to be honest with you, Doc, I already had a pretty good idea of what happened at Canary Wharf. There were security cameras all through that place and Tosh, she's one of my team members, was able to hack into the system and download it onto our servers. And, I've already looked into some things. Not a lot, mind you. I was still hoping that this was all somehow a big mistake. But, I've already collected a fair amount of resources. I reckon you'll be able to put them to good use."

The Doctor was stunned, "But how did you even -"

Jack cut him off, "And Doc, there's something else you should know about me, about what I do before we go any further. Doctor, I'm the leader of the Cardiff branch of Torchwood."


	7. Chapter 7

It took the Doctor a full 1.71 seconds to process what Jack said. But then, he was on his feet in less than that, feeling like he had been punched through both of his stomachs.

"YOU WHAT!?" he roared, "YOU WORK FOR _TORCHWOOD_!? HOW COULD YOU, JACK? THEY _KILLED_ HER!"

"Doc! Listen I -" Jack tried, but the Doctor was having none of it.

"Is that what this is about then? Oh you'll help me alright, help me right into a cell so your people can dissect me! I know I left you behind Jack, but Rassilon! How could you do this? HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ROSE!?" The Doctor punctuated his accusation by throwing his half-drunken glass against the wall and storming out the door. He hardly spared a glance at the wide-eyed looks Jack's team gave him over the pizza they were sharing as he hurried back to his TARDIS. None of them had moved towards him, but that could just be the shock of his abrupt reappearance. He wasn't waiting around for them to get over it and come after him. Probably with guns, the bastards.

"Doc!" Jack was in quick pursuit as the Doctor raced down the stairs and across the warehouse floor, "Wait! Let me explain! Doctor!"

The Doctor was close, almost in the safety of his TARDIS where he could lock himself away for centuries and lament about his stupidity in thinking there had ever even been a chance. He barged through the doors, but Jack got a hand inside before he could turn to slam them closed. A wave of nausea ripped through the Doctor, making him stumble to the grating as the TARDIS reeled from the intrusion of the fixed point in time that was Jack Harkness. It was all the traitorous man needed to push the rest of his way into the ship and stand over the Doctor. The Doctor stared daggers up at Jack for a moment before deflating and leaning back against the console.

"Fine." He said, hanging his head, "You win. You caught me. And the TARDIS. Two for one special. They should give you a promotion. Although, you're already running the place, aren't you?" He was thoroughly defeated, which really was fine with him. He was done fighting. Done hoping. Just…done. His only regret was that when he didn't come around anymore, Jackie would think he'd forgotten about her and moved on. He'd never meet Rose's little sibling. With the thought of a cheeky blonde child with Rose's smile, the Doctor decided that, at least, may be for the best.

"Gods, Doc," Jack swore, "Pull yourself together and think for a second. If I wanted to do you any harm, I could have done it about a thousand different ways since you landed. But I didn't. Because I don't. I know it's a hard concept for you, but if you would just listen -"

The Doctor snorted.

"See!" Jack yelled, "You can't even let me get a few sentences in. The genius Time Lord can't stand to hear the stupid ape plead his case." Jack mocked, "Well, _you_ were the one who sought this stupid ape out for help. And Doc, I told you I wouldn't let you save Rose if it means sacrificing this world. But I'm also not going to let you give up now that I know there may be a chance to get her back."

The Doctor, again, couldn't quite find the words. His mind was reeling, trying to put the puzzle pieces together of what he knew of Torchwood, what he knew of his old friend, and what Jack had just said. Jack took his silence as an opportunity and began to explain.

"How I see it, I shouldn't have to be the one explaining things. I was the one who was left alone and inexplicably immortal on a satellite filled with human and Dalek corpse dust with no explanation. I was the one who was abandoned and forgotten by the people I thought were my best friends. I spent a long time thinking about what I'd say to the two of you when I found you again. And it wasn't always pretty."

The Doctor took in a breath, but Jack talked over whatever indignant reply was on the tip of the Doctor's tongue. He let it go because, despite his anger, and grief, and frustration, Jack did have a point. Somewhere deep down, the Doctor knew that.

"But now she's gone. And it's Torchwood's fault. And I'm sorry. I failed her. I failed the both of you." Jack hung his head.

The Doctor looked up from the grating in confusion. "I thought you were trying to tell me how it wasn't your fault," the Doctor narrowed his eyes at Jack.

"Oh no, it's my fault, alright. But not in the way you think." When the Doctor was silent, Jack continued, "When you first left me, I thought it was some mistake. I thought for sure you'd be back for me. But after a few days, I realized either you couldn't or wouldn't come back. So, I set out to find you. Figured 21st century Earth would be a good bet, Rose coming from that time and all. But vortex manipulator travel is a tricky thing. I landed two centuries early and the damn thing burnt out. That was a rough time for me. I did some things I'm not proud of." Jack had a haunted, faraway look in his eyes before shaking his head and bringing his piercing stare back to the Doctor, who had now relocated to the jump seat.

"Anyway, eventually I found these people, called themselves Torchwood and seemed to be fighting the good fight. So I did some contract work with them. Somewhere along the lines I got a glimpse of their charter: You and Rose Tyler - enemies of the crown." Jack raised his eyebrows and laughed at that, "I'd love to hear that story someday, by the way. But not today."

Jack sobered and continued his tale, "I knew then what my place was, why I was left behind. I was meant to be here, to work at Torchwood and protect the two of you. Did a pretty good job of it too for a while. Did you think it odd that you didn't even know about a centuries-old organization built to apprehend you? That was me. I threw them off your trail at every opportunity. Hoped to someday meet up with the right you, but of course things didn't go to plan."

"It was that woman, Yvonne Hartman. Well her and all the xenophobia after the Sycorax attack. I'd done a pretty decent job cleaning up Torchwood in my time there, but she blew through the organization promising safety for the human race…at a cost. A cost many seemed all too eager to pay."

"I knew it was only a matter of time before they found out about me. Didn't fancy being one of their test subjects. So I distanced the Cardiff branch from the rest of Torchwood. I made it the best it could be, protecting both Earth and any visiting or resident aliens. I did it in your honor, Doctor, you and Rose. I kept as close watch on Torchwood One as I could. I thought it would be enough. But it wasn't."

"I didn't even know it was them behind the ghosts shifts. Some watchdog I am," Jack snorted, "So, in the end, my cowardice is why Rose died. If I hadn't kept my distance. If I had been man enough to risk my freedom…" the Doctor watched Jack swallow hard and knew the man was fighting back tears, "I would have known. I should have known. I should have stopped it before you and Rose got mixed up in any of it. After all these years…" Jack trailed off to compose himself. He finished in a hoarse voice, "I had always hoped to find the two of you again. I had hoped to show you that I was still the man you taught me to be. A good man. Instead, I failed you. So Doc, you see why. You see why I'm not going to let you run from a chance to save her. I owe her. I owe the both of you."

"Oh Jack," the Doctor sighed wearily. He looked at his friend and felt no trace of anger. "It's been months, and you've been beating yourself up all this time?"

"Haven't you?" Jack challenged softly.

"Course," the Doctor snorted, "But I was there. I had promised to always keep her safe…"

"That's not what I heard," Jack argued, "Rose told me that you only promised to always bring her back home to Jackie. So lets do that, Doc. Let's quit fighting over blame and let's get her back."

The Doctor took a few moments, then nodded. Jack was right. This game of blame and self-pity they were playing was getting them nowhere. And it certainly wasn't doing Rose any good.

"Right," the Doctor said brightly as he shot to his feet, "I think I know where to begin."

If Jack was dizzied by the Doctor's abrupt shift in mood, he didn't show it. He just followed the Doctor as he darted over to the console monitor and started typing at a dizzying pace.


	8. Chapter 8

The Doctor and Jack worked obsessively for weeks. They had to take breaks to save the rift-haunted city or, occasionally, the universe, but little else could distract them. Jack's team, who the Doctor thought he would very much like getting to know under different circumstances, eventually gave up trying to get their leader to "lighten up and take a break from the bat cave," as Jack's second in command Gwen had put it. The two men simply could not be persuaded to direct their focus anywhere else. Though the Doctor and Jack worked with single-minded pursuit, they did occasionally speak of things other than their ambition to bring Rose back. They reminisced, caught each other up on their lives since they had parted, and managed to patch up the frayed threads of their friendship. It almost felt like old times every once in a while as they tinkered in sync while serenaded by the hum of machinery. Almost. But the presence they were missing was always keenly felt.

In their pursuit, there were good days and bad. Breakthroughs and setbacks, though admittedly, most of the time the Doctor felt like they were merely pushing against a steel wall with a toothpick. He'd nearly gotten frustrated to the point of madness on several occasions, and was thankful that Jack had been there to talk him down, and in one instance, knock him out. The worst of it had been at the beginning, when he had been too raw from grief and traveling on his own. Even though he still missed Rose with every beat of his hearts, The Doctor slowly was healing with Jack's help. Whether or not they succeeded, the Doctor knew he had been right to come here.

They had known they were close for days before it all finally snapped into place. The Doctor woke from the brief bit of slumber Jack had forced him into with a flash of insight that helped him put the last pieces of the puzzle into place. He'd rushed into the lab after waking Jack up, and by that evening, they had the outline for the machine that could bring Rose back.

It still took a couple weeks to piece it all together. It felt surreal as the Doctor soniced the last wire into place and stepped back to admire his work. It was a large contraption, towering halfway to the tall warehouse ceiling. It consisted of two thick columns made of cobbled bits of alien metals that were hooked up to the rift manipulator housed in Torchwood's basement. When activated, the columns would resonate at the precise pitch to open a small tear in the void. Truthfully, that had been the easy part. The humans at Torchwood One had managed it, after all, with only a slight head start from the Void ship's puncture. The tricky part was to isolate who…or what came through. There was more than Cybermen and Daleks floating through the void. Inviting the wrong entities through to this universe could spell disaster for more than just Earth. When they opened the Void, they needed to make sure all that escaped was a beloved human girl. How they would achieve this was mostly theory, barely sound enough for Jack or the Doctor to be willing to risk it. Truth be told, if it wasn't Rose they were doing it all for, both men would have probably walked away a long time ago.

The tenuous theory was to lock on to Rose's unique DNA, temporal, and telepathic signature. For that, the TARDIS would be hooked up to what Jack called a Void Vacuum. While inelegant, the term wasn't inaccurate. A large funnel wold be placed facing where the void would open, hopefully exerting enough pull to bring Rose, and only Rose back to them.

The Doctor's eyes ran over each piece of the set-up, knowing that he would go over every calculation and mechanical bit several times before they would give it a go. And somewhere between him assuring himself it was as safe as possible and activating the thing, he would need to tell Jackie and Pete.

Jackie glanced at the TARDIS blue envelope that sat on the table as she waited for the sausage to cook. It had come through with the post the evening prior, a convention she never would have thought the Doctor capable of. True, he had put ten pounds worth of stamps on it, even though she was pretty sure he had just soniced her post pox open and put the letter in there himself. So the whole thing wasn't completely normal. But why the alien didn't just show up unannounced like he usually did, was beyond her.

_To Jackie and Pete,_

_I'll be coming around tomorrow morning for a visit. Don't cook, I'll bring something._

_-The Doctor_

That was all the note had said and Jackie was stumped at the strange formality and forward thinking. One thing she did know was that she wasn't leaving it up to the Doctor to bring breakfast. It was more than likely he'd show up with some disgusting alien dish or be two weeks late. No, when it came to Sunday brunch, Jackie was not willing to leave it up to the alien. Especially not when she was craving a good fry-up.

Pete strolled into the room sniffing appreciatively. He would usually still be in is jimjams and robe at this time on a Sunday, but the both of them had decided to get dressed early, never sure what chaos the Doctor would bring with him. She caressed her belly at the thought, hoping that Himself would know better now that she was pregnant. It was bad enough Pete worked with Torchwood, even if his role was mostly management. Directing, actually, Jackie thought with pride. Still, she didn't want any of that _stuff_ mucking with this little one.

Jackie was just starting to show if she didn't wear the right clothes, so she had dressed carefully, not wanting to bring attention to the new life growing inside her when she knew the Doctor would still be mourning the life they had lost. The Doctor had been pleased when she'd told him she was pregnant, but that didn't mean she should parade the physical evidence of her pregnancy around for him. These days, the slightest thing would send him off brooding. Not that she blamed him. She was often the same.

Pete came up behind her, kissing her shoulder and placing his hands over hers on the slight bump made by their child.

"Smells lovely," he said in a gravely morning voice. It was small moments like these that made her fall for him all over again. And then she'd look around the quiet flat and miss Rose all the more. If only her daughter could be here to see this growing family. Pete had been wonderful, more than understanding when each step they took together came with a new wave of grief. She supposed she'd had to be rather brave herself, opening up to a copy of her dead husband even as she grieved for her little girl.

A smart rap at the door tore her from her musings. Pete disentangled himself with a quick peck to her cheek. "Guess that'll be him then," he said, going to open the door.

"I'll believe it when I see it," Jackie snorted, thinking of the twelve hours that were really twelve months. Plus, their caller hadn't soniced the door open as was the Doctor's usual habit lately. Maybe it was just Bev over to borrow some milk again.

It was to her great surprise, and she supposed, relief that she heard the Doctor's voice return Pete's jovial greeting. The men exchanged pleasantries on their way to the kitchen.

"Oh," the Doctor looked slightly crestfallen, "I told you not to cook." He help up a bag of takeaway from the brunch place down the street.

"You went to Barry's?" she raised her eyebrows.

The Doctor looked down at the bag, "Er…yeah. That ok? It had good ratings online."

Jackie turned fully to face the Time Lord, hands on her hips, "What did you do this time?"

"What?" the Doctor looked between Jackie and Pete, clearly confused why she was suddenly on the offensive.

"You send us a letter in the post to let us know you're coming, you arrive on time, you knock on the bloody door like a civilized person, and you bring brunch. And not alien rubbish brunch, but proper brunch from Barry's. Which you looked up. Online. Look me in the eye and tell me somethin's not up." Jackie glared at him.

The Doctor fidgeted nervously under her gaze, and Jackie wondered once more at how her daughter had ever described him as the Oncoming Storm. "I was just trying to be nice," he mumbled, "Why does something have to be 'up' for me to follow a few Earth conventions?"

"Because it does," Jackie said wisely.

The Doctor sighed and put the takeout on the table, "Very well. Yes, I er…wanted to talk to the two of you. But perhaps it can wait until after brekkie?" The last he asked hopefully in that forced cheerful voice that grated on her nerves.

Jackie raised an eyebrow, "And have me stewing in suspense? I'm pregnant, you remember, the stress isn't good for the baby."

"You better just be out with it," Pete told the Doctor consolingly. Then to Jackie, "Here love, let's take our tea now and we can eat after."

"Assuming the world hasn't blown up by then," she grumbled.

Taking a breath to fight her irritation, Jackie turned the stove's flame off so the food wouldn't burn, and followed the tea-tray-carrying-Pete to the sofa. She heard the swish of the Doctor's jacket as he trailed behind them.

They all sat down, the Doctor sitting across from Jackie and Pete who had taken their place on the sofa. They stared at each other. Blimey, since when did the alien keep quiet for longer than a few seconds?

"How's the baby?" the Doctor asked finally. Jackie could tell that wasn't why he was here, but talking about her pregnancy was a topic she never seemed to tire of. And if he was asking…

"We're doing fine, thanks," she offered a smile, "passing all the check-ups with flying colors. Haven't even been sick, really. Never would have thought a pregnancy could be this easy. Not after what Rose put me through before she fought her way into the world." Jackie chuckled sadly.

The Doctors own reaction to the mention of Rose was pronounced. He twitched, almost dropping his teacup, before he stat up straight, posture stiff.

"Oh sweetheart, I miss her too," she fought off the tears that suddenly welled up in her eyes. It touched her to see him still so affected by the loss of her daughter, but at the same time, her heart ached for him. Her heart ached for all of them. And she supposed it always would.

"Er…"the Doctor began. He took a deep breath, which seemed to fortify him because he finally brought up what he must be there to discuss. "I suppose I'll just be out with it then. Jackie, what do you know about…about what happened to Rose?"

Jackie wondered why the alien would bring this up now. It was obviously a painful topic for all of them. But it was also obviously relevant to whatever the Doctor was working up the nerve to talk about.

"Just what you told me, really. That the lever on her side slipped…that she sacrificed herself to set it back into place to save the world…and that she got sucked in the void. That's why there wasn't a body." The last part was hard for her to say. She didn't quite know what the Doctor was getting at, why he was making her speak about these things.

The Doctor nodded, "Yes, that's the gist of it. But I mean after. After she fell. Once she was in the Void…"

"Well your people called it Hell, didn't they," that too had been hard to say. It was something that she had figured out for herself in the weeks after Canary Wharf. At first the grief was so overwhelming that her mind shied away of any thought of that horrible day. But then, she'd remember little bits. And she put those little bits together. She'd consoled herself that the Doctor had said that Rose had died, and that meant her daughter couldn't be caught in some hellish place. But she'd never had the courage to put the Doctor on the spot about it.

The Doctor looked back at her, shocked if his wide eyes and gaping mouth were to be trusted. "You…you knew? All this time?"

Jackie felt herself deflate, "No. No I didn't know until just now. I'd thought of the possibility, but Doctor, you said she'd died! She can't…she can't be hurting then, right? Not now, not still!"

Pete took her hand and she spared a glance his way. Judging by his face, this was news to him. She didn't think she could deal with his take on things now so she turned her gaze back to the Doctor.

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair and Jackie realized how worn down he looked. She hand't noticed it at first because he'd been radiating a sort of nervous energy since he'd walked in the door.

The Doctor seemed to choose his words carefully, "I could have been right, when I said that she died. The thing is…I don't know. And Jackie, the not knowing…it's making me go a bit mad to be honest. I can't just leave it there. If she survived the fall, if she's suffering, I have to do something about it."

Jackie was distracted from his pleading tone by the content of his words. "What are you saying?" she asked slowly, "What do you mean, _do_ something about it? Can you? Can you bring…" Jackie couldn't finish the sentence and it wasn't just because her throat had tightened painfully. She was trying desperately to cut hope off before it could begin. Her daughter was dead. As much as she wished it wasn't true, that was her reality. Getting her hopes up would be like losing Rose all over again. Unless…Unwillingly she clutched Pete's hand harder, her breath quickening in anticipation.

"I…" the Doctor hesitated, "The last thing I want to do is get your hopes up, only to have it all be for not. But…yes. There's a chance. Jack and I…we've been working on this Void opener thing, pooling our resources. And we think it's our best shot. Now, it's still a maybe, and it's only to bring Rose back. If…if she didn't survive the void, which is a strong possibility, it would just be her…body we bring back. And if she did survive…Jackie, she may not be the Rose we knew. And like I said, it's just a chance. A small one at that. Most likely it won't work at all."

For a moment Jackie felt as if she were separated from her body. Then feeling returned to her extremities with a vengeance as the blood pounding thorough her veins made every inch of her skin seem to tingle.

"Jacks? Love? Look at me. Are you alright?" it was Pete, but he sounded so far away. He had turned his body on the sofa so that he was facing her and he cupped the sides of her face in his hands. "Just breathe Jacks. Breathe," he entreated her, mimicking the deep breaths he wanted her to take while stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. She closed her eyes and took a few breaths to placate her husband as much as to get back in control of herself. When she opened them again, her vision was blurred with tears.

"Jackie, I'm sorry," the Doctor's voice came from her other side. He must have gotten up to kneel beside her without her notice. "Maybe I shouldn't have come. You're right, stress isn't good for the baby…"

"Oh hush!" she admonished once she got her voice back, "Of course you should 'ave. What? You'd try all this and have Pete n' me over here sippin' tea and being none the wiser?"

"No," he admitted, "No I didn't think that was right. If Rose comes back, if she's alive, she should see you there."

"You really think you can do this?" Jackie whispered.

"I know I have to try," he replied solemnly.

"And it's safe?" she asked.

"As much as something like this can be."

"Good. How soon can we do it?" she demanded. In the span of this conversation she'd had it confirmed that her daughter could essentially be in Hell and that there was a possibility of getting her back. The thought of her little girl hurting…As far as Jackie was concerned, they couldn't do this soon enough.

The Doctor stared at her open mouthed.

"What, you thought I'd be against this?" Jackie demanded.

"No, I er…I didn't know. It's…it's a lot. It's a lot for me and I've been working on this for a couple of months." He replied candidly.

"Well seems to me you need someone to kick ya in the pants to get this goin'. I'll be that person. Let me grab some things and we'll go. You mentioned Jack? That bloke you and Rose traveled with? Where's this thing set up then?"

"Er, yeah, we've been working on it at Jack's place. It's in Cardiff."

"Cardiff," Jackie sniffed disdainfully, "It'll take ages to get there."

"Well," the Doctor said, "I could always…give you a lift. Parked right outside."

"Pete?" Jackie turned back to her husband who had kept a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Like you said, I can just grab some things and be ready. I'll call the office…let them know I'll be off for a few days," he said, proving once again to her how completely wonderful he was.

"Thanks, love," she smiled up at him as he got up.

"Of course," he said softly, "Anything we can do to bring her back." Jackie knew he meant it, and not just for her. He too had mourned the girl who was and wasn't his. Maybe…maybe none of them would have to mourn much longer.

Pete and the Doctor helped Jackie off the sofa and they set about getting ready to go.


	9. Chapter 9

The Doctor's hands stopped their manic dance over the machinery to share one last glance with the others. He looked to Jack who was manning rift levers, and felt another wave of cool determination suffuse him at his friend's steady nod. Everything was ready on his end too. The Doctor's eyes scanned over to Gwen and Ianto who were ready to step in and help if needed. Owen and Martha were hovering just outside the main radius of the Void contraption in case their services were needed. The Doctor had found Martha Jones, now a certified physician, and asked her for this very important favor. It was a decision he'd thought about for the past couple of weeks, wondering if he had any right to bring the bright woman back into this mad world of aliens and danger. It was an overheard crass comment from Owen that had settled it. Maybe it was optimistic to think that Rose would still be within the help of medicine if they succeeded, but if she was, he wasn't going to leave it all up to Owen and his tactless quips. No, it was only the best for Rose Tyler. Owen only fit that bill in his technical skills, but still left much to be desired in bedside manner. Martha with her brilliance _and_ compassion could lead in both areas.

Martha had been surprised to see him again, and nearly speechless with his open explanation of the situation. He had all but pleaded for her help. But she was a star, this Martha Jones, and despite how he'd treated her before, despite him barging back into her life to throw it upside down once again, she had agreed. Martha had told him she'd do all she could and that she couldn't wait to meet this Rose woman who had an ancient alien tripping over himself. His answering smile to that remark had been genuine.

With a nod from each of the team, and an encouraging smile from Martha, he finally looked towards the nervous figures of Jackie and Pete. He had tried to convince them to wait in the Torchwood bunker while they activated the Void Machine. He'd argued that was the only way he could guarantee their safety, not to mention he wasn't sure what Jackie would have to be witness to if she stayed in the room. Not knowing what condition they would bring Rose back in not only meant whether she was alive or dead, but also whether she was…whole. She could be gravely injured, decomposing, or even cyberized for all he knew. The Doctor took a breath and pushed aside such horrific visions. He needed to concentrate.

Jackie and Pete had finally agreed to stay in a glass room that he'd constructed with walls more impervious than earth's usual brand of bullet proof glass. It made the Doctor uneasy to have them so close, but it couldn't be helped now. Rose had learned her stubbornness from an expert, possibly the queen of that skill. He locked eyes with the couple now, nodding his head to let them know all was ready. Pete was holding Jackie in a tight embrace from behind, and the Doctor could see the man's arm tighten as his wife stiffened with anticipation. It was time.

The Doctor closed his eyes, taking another deep breath and pushing all emotion aside. He would need a clear head for this delicate procedure. Once everything had faded except for the control panel laid out in front of him, he began the process.

His hands moved over the buttons and levers as his advanced senses took careful inventory of the process. He watched as the computer screens flashed various graphs and charts at him and listened closely to the pitch of the humming machinery. It was all going as planned, the energies converging and the hum increasing in pitch as if the whole warehouse was about to blast off to Oxalene 5. Despite himself, his heart started pounding as it got closer…closer…

With a deep shudder the machine shut down abruptly.

"No no no!" the Doctor yelled in frustration, pulling at his hair as he ran to the readout screen near Jack to see what had gone wrong.

"It's the calibration from the TARDIS," Jack said, pointing to the blip on the screen, "Looks like a wire came loose in the fifth quadrant."

The Doctor swore colorfully and jammed his hand into his pocket to retrieve his sonic screwdriver with much more force than necessary.

Once the wire was reconnected, then it was the centrifuge was misaligned, and then a calculation was a micrometer off, and then one of the mechanisms needed to be reconstructed. It was maddening, everyone in the room ramping up with anticipation, only to have the process halt, yet again, by some unexpected error that they couldn't have anticipated before they actually tried to run the machine.

It made the Doctor's worry shoot up several notches because once they opened the void, there would be no do-overs. If the vacuum didn't work, or they didn't close it properly, it would all be for not…or worse. He knew it, and he saw it in the eyes of the team, especially Jack and Tosh who had more of an idea of the science behind what they were doing.

The Doctor threw a sonic spanner across the room in frustration when they had to take a break for a late lunch. He assumed it must have been a rather subdued affair, full of tension. Of course, he had turned his nose up at the takeout, spending the hour fiddling with things and going over the calculations.

Then they were at it again in what seemed like an endless cycle of trail, error, fixing, and trying again. The tension was getting to all of them and they were starting to make foolish mistakes.

"What time is it?" he finally asked as he exited the TARDIS after recalibrating a program he'd written.

"Half nine," Gwen replied tiredly. The Doctor nodded. They'd have to call it a night soon.

"Hey," Jack came up beside him to clap him on the back, "If we don't get it today, we'll try again tomorrow."

"And if it never works," the Doctor asked dismally.

"Hey, none of that," Jack cajoled, "We knew this wouldn't be easy. It's only the first day. We'll get it, Doc."

The Doctor sighed, offering his friend a smile that didn't reach his eyes or his hearts.

To the rest of them he raised his voice so they could hear, "Next test starting i 1…"

The lights flashed as they always did and the hum picked up, as it had done in all but two of the trials. But this time, the hum didn't die down after a minute or two. Instead, it continued to increase in pitch and volume until those who did not need their hands to work the machine had their ears covered to ward off the sound. Before the Doctor could dare to hope, it all seemed to happen at once.

The humming gave way to the snapping sound of static as papers were blown about the room from a strong wind. A shimmering, jagged oval appeared between the two towers and the Doctor felt the pronounced uneasiness his kind felt when facing the Void.

Working on autopilot, the Doctor rushed over to the vacuum, starting the sequence before Jack pushed him aside. "I've got it!" he shouted over the din in the room, "Go get our girl!"

Before the Doctor could even turn around, he heard it. A voice. _The_ voice. The voice he had dreamt of and longed for that was now raised in a blood curdling scream. In the time it took him to turn and run towards the breach in the void, the scream had gone from distant to deafening.

"Rose!" he called desperately, although the sound of his voice never reached his ears with all the commotion in the room.

Then a blur of a figure shot out of the void and plowed into him, knocking him over onto the cold cement floor. It had taken a fraction of a second, but that had been all he needed to see the powder blue of her jumper and the wild gold of her messy hair.

It was Rose. His beautiful Rose.

His heart leapt, even as he rushed to untangle their limbs to assess her condition.

Rose was here, she was back! She was in his arms! And…and…she'd stopped screaming. She'd…stopped moving.

_Oh Rassilon, no._

His heart was back in his throat as he finally got himself upright, pulling her limp body into his lap. "Rose?" he choked out. Then louder when she didn't respond, "Rose? Rose!" He cupped her pale cheek shocked at how cool her skin was. But, he'd heard her scream! She'd been alive. She'd just been alive.

Frantically, he checked her pulse and watched her chest carefully for the hint of breath that would bring him salvation. He saw none.

"No." he wouldn't allow it, "No!"

He had thought that if they succeeded, if they could bring her back, no matter what happened it would be good. He thought he could be at peace knowing that she was no longer suffering, even if he lost her in the end. But as soon as he saw her _pulled screaming back from the void_, all that had gone to hell. She was there and he was holding her and he remembered what it was like to feel whole again. He couldn't loose her. Not again. He couldn't survive it.

He sprang into motion, fighting for her with everything he had at his disposal.

"Martha! Owen!" he called, never taking his eyes off Rose's pallid face, "Life support now!"

Unwilling to wait for them, he flicked through the settings of his sonic and set it against her chest to deliver shocks that would force her still heart to contract. He lay her down on the ground and pinched her nose so that the air he blew into her mouth would go to her lungs. Her lips were only just starting to turn blue. They still had time. But not much.

"C'mon, Rose," he said. "C'mon, Rose, _please_!" he begged between breaths.

"Oi! You'll burst her lungs!," Owen barked at him as the two doctors fell to their knees beside him. "Your lung capacity is three times hers!"

Oh Rassilon, he'd forgotten. At his stricken look Martha reassured him, "It's ok, I didn't hear anything that would suggest you hurt her, but Doctor, you need to step back and let us help her now."

"But…but I can't," the Doctor protested weakly, never ceasing in the rhythmic pulsing of his sonic over her heart.

"Alright fine, but move over to the right, I need to get a breathing tube in," Owen compromised.

The Doctor watched numbly as Owen guided a tube down Rose's throat and attached it to a respiratory machine that harvested oxygen from the air. Martha dug through the med packs until she found a small metal hexagon that she put on Rose's skin just over her heart. She must have cut Rose's shirt off while he'd been watching Owen work.

"Venusian life support," she explained when she caught the Doctor's eye, "Owen showed me how it works yesterday morning." He nodded numbly and watched as thin metal filaments shot out from the hexagon to burrow in Rose's chest. He knew that they would find key locations on her heart, would keep it beating until it could do so on it's own. Genius bit of technology that. He pocketed his sonic now that there was no longer a need for it.

The Doctor reached down to clutch Rose's cold hand. When he felt the faint beat of her pulse through her skin, the numbness that had settled over him lifted. He sprang into action.

"We need to get her to the TARDIS infirmary. Now!" he commanded. Hands worked together to carefully, but quickly ease Rose onto a stretcher, which they lifted up to waist height before setting off for the TARDIS.

"Doctor!" he heard Jackie wail from somewhere behind him. He stole a moment to look back and meet her stricken gaze.

"Jackie. We have machines helping her breathe and keeping her heart beating. I don't know anything else yet, and I have to see to her. I'll come out and tell you as soon as I know anything and as soon as she's stabilized. But Jackie, right now I have to go help her."

The blonde woman chocked on a sob and nodded. "I'll do everything I can!" he called back over his shoulder as they raced to the TARDIS.

He would do that and more.


	10. Chapter 10

The infirmary was home to a flurry of motion as the three of them worked franticly to save Rose. Jack, the rest of his team, Jackie, and Pete were probably waiting somewhere else in the TARDIS, but the Doctor couldn't think about them right now. He couldn't even think of himself and the way his hearts shuttered at the prospect of losing Rose all over again. All his focus was in the dance of the two doctors and himself as they hooked up this monitor or readied a dose of that medication.

"Should I get out the feeding tube?" Martha asked him as he checked the circulation in Rose's extremities. The device she was referring to wasn't a feeding tube pre-say, but that was the closest description coming from 21st century medical knowledge.

"No," the Doctor replied briskly before devoting his whole attention back to his precious patient.

"But she'll need…" Martha began before Owen cut her off.

"What he means is, no, because it will be one less thing he'll have to unhook her from if she's a veggie." The Doctor's stomach dropped. Owen spoke the truth, but it had been a truth that he would rather have kept hidden from himself until he absolutely had to face it. The thought of….no, he needed to focus.

"Yes, thank you for that Owen," he said harshly, "Now shut up and get cool saline going through the IV. We need keep her core temperature low." If the command was strange to the other doctor, he didn't show it. Seeming to realize how much his commentary wasn't appreciated, Owen kept his mouth shut as he pulled a chilled saline bag out of the infirmary's fridge.

The Doctor, comfortable, if not pleased, with the blood profusion in Rose's extremities went on to check her reflexes. Martha watched him intently, raising her eyebrows but making no comment when the Doctor did several tests that she wouldn't have learned in medical school. With one last check to the monitors, the Doctor stepped back and ran a hand over his face. Rose was finally stable, the machines were doing their job in keeping her alive at the most basic levels, but the preliminary tests they were running didn't look good beyond that. He needed to go talk to Jackie and Pete. But how could he get the words out? How could he tell them…

"Do you want me to go talk to her mum?" Martha asked softly, placing a gentle hand on his arm.

The idea was tempting. Right now the Doctor wanted nothing more than to run into the depths of his TARDIS and break down. But he knew he couldn't. This wasn't Martha's burden to bare.

"No," he said hoarsely, "No, I better be the one…" he trailed off.

"Alright," he saw Martha nod out of the corner of his eye, the main focus of his gaze still on Rose, "What do you want us to do?"

The Doctor took a breath, shook his head to clear it, and tried to get more of a hold of himself. As much as he dreaded the answer…"You and Owen start some scans of her brain. I want anatomical and functional. It should only take a few minutes, but don't bring up the results. I'll bring Jackie and Pete in here and we'll look at them together. When we come back, you two go ahead and take a rest. The kitchen's well stocked and I think I have that blue tea you like, Martha." He managed a small smile in her direction.

"Of course," Martha met his sad smile with one of her own, "whatever you need."

"Thanks," he croaked out. Then, he turned to leave before the temptation to stay by Rose's side was too great.

He found Jackie, Pete, and the rest of the gang in a cozy waiting room the TARDIS had provided next door to the infirmary. There were enough comfy chairs to go around and an impressive tea spread set out on a table in the back of the room. He supposed the room's occupants could be sitting on metal bleachers in a blizzard and care about as much about their surroundings. Still, it was a nice touch from the TARDIS who was already exhausted from the feat she had just helped them achieve with the Void.

As soon as he stepped into the room, everyone stood up with hopeful anticipation in their eyes.

"Jackie, Pete, why don't you stay here and have a seat. Everyone else, the kitchen is in it's usual spot. Owen and Martha will be along shortly to fill you in."

The Doctor ignored Jack's attempts to catch his eye. He didn't think he would be able to look at his friend without his weariness and sadness breaking through. He needed to keep the calm mask he had on, so that he could explain things to Jackie and Pete properly. It wouldn't do for him to break down in front of them.

He stood rigidly as everyone else filed out of the room and turned down the corridor.

Finally, he turned his attention to the two remaining occupants, forcing himself to meet their eyes and see the fatigue and worry there.

"Have a seat," he offered again, unsurprised that they had ignored his previous request. This time, they sat, and he pulled up a chair for himself.

"Doctor," Jackie pleaded with tears in her eyes once they had seated themselves.

The Doctor took a deep breath and began with the basics, "She's stabilized. The devices that are keeping her basic body functions going are working well. I put her into a medically induced coma for now, to give her body a better chance at healing." He took another breath and catalogued Jackie's reaction. She looked hopeful at this news, but the Doctor could see that Pete knew there was a "but" coming by the tight expression on his face. The man gripped his wife's hand, lending her strength for what was about to come.

The Doctor swallowed thickly and spoke before he could overthink the words, "There's no easy way to say this, but Rose shows some signs of serious brain damage. I'm running some scans now, and based on what they tell us…well, we may have some difficult decisions ahead of us."

Jackie burst into tears and he felt a lump form in his own throat. He focused on breathing in and out, and told himself that no matter what, at least Rose wouldn't be suffering in the Void. They had done the right thing. So why did he feel as if it had gone so wrong?

The Doctor sunk into dark musings and was surprised to hear Jackie's shaky voice sometime later, "How did it happen? What caused the…the brain injury? She was alive when she first broke through. I heard her screaming." Jackie's voice broke, "I know I did."

The Doctor shook his head, "I don't know, Jackie. I don't know if it was what she went through in the Void, or if it was the shock of being flung back to Earth. Maybe it was something in the process itself, something I missed, some mistake I made…"

Before he could lose himself once again in that agonizing train of thought, Jackie reached over and grabbed his hand, "Don't blame yourself, sweetheart. We all knew what we were doing was risky. No matter what, you saved her from that Void place," she said echoing his own thought from a moment ago, "And I'm _so_ grateful for that."

The Doctor could only nod. After a few moments, he was composed enough to speak, "The scans should be done now. I thought we could look at them together. And then, we can talk about the options. If we…if we have to let her go, you can have some time with her first."

"Alright," Jackie nodded, her tears fading into a sort of daze. They all stood silently, each lost in thought and working on little more than autopilot.

The Doctor had expected Jackie to break down once she saw Rose so pale and still and hooked up to all manner of machines. He'd braced himself for it. What he hadn't expected was for Pete to cover his face in his hands and sit down heavily in a chair by Rose's bedside. Jackie dropped her husbands hand, running to Rose and cupping the side of her daughters face.

"She's so cold," Jackie choked out.

"We lowered her core temperature to slow her body down. She may have a better chance this way."

Jackie nodded and leaned down to stroke her daughters mussed hair. With difficulty, the Doctor turned his back on the heart-wrenching scene to pull up the scan results. He nodded his thanks to Martha and Owen as they quietly slipped out of the room to join the others.

"Jackie, Pete?" the Doctor beckoned them over when he had the scans ready to view. "I just have to push this button and we'll be able to see…I just wanted to make sure you're ready."

Jackie and Pete both took some fortifying breaths. "How can you ever be ready for something like this?" Pete asked shaking his head.

"You can't," Jackie stated, before reaching over to press the button herself.

With a single beep, the images of Rose's brain loaded onto the screen. The Doctor placed his hands on the counter and leaned forward to study them intently. His gaze catalogued one image after the next with practiced ease. It was only a few minutes later that he let out a huge breath and deflated, relying on shaky arms to hold up his weight as his posture slackened.

"What?! What is it?!" Jackie shrieked, tearing him away from the wave of consuming emotion he felt.

When he turned back to the waiting couple, it was with a small smile of his face, "There's nothing to suggest brain death. She has a chance."

Pete whooped and lifted Jackie up into a huge bear hug as they both took in the news. The Doctor hardly had a moment to enjoy this turn of events before Jackie had grabbed him into the embrace. They all held each other for a moment, sharing their relief and joy.

It was with reluctance that the Doctor once again assailed them with a "but." "It's fantastic that she doesn't have obvious evidence of permanent damage, it means there is a chance, but really that's all it is. The scans also showed that functionally her brain is rather…confused, almost like the connections and pathways are scrambled or greatly dimmed. Even more than I would expect with the sedation we gave her. There's no way to tell if things will sort themselves out. She may recover in time, but she may not. I need you two to know that. I need you to know that we still aren't working in certainties here."

"So, what do we do?" Pete asked.

"Well, for now, we wait. I'll keep her in the coma for a few days to try and let her body and her brain recover from the shock of being back in this reality. Then, I'll slowly wake her up and we'll see where we are. She may wake up as the Rose we knew, or it may take her years to get there….or it may never happen. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, but I just don't know," he finished, wishing he had better news for all of them. There was one certainty he could give them, "But we'll give her every possible chance. Our Rose is going to get the best care anyone has ever seen in this universe or any other."

"Then I guess that's all we can ask for," Jackie said.

"For now," The Doctor nodded.

They slowly found their places around the room, sitting in chairs or leaning on counters and staring in awe and worry at the girl they had never expected to see again. As the minutes ticked away and became hours, they settled in for the most difficult wait of their lives.


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor and Jackie had each settled in a chair on either side of Rose's bed in the infirmary. He had helped Jackie navigate through the many tubes and wires to find Rose's hand to hold before settling into his own seat and lacing his fingers through Rose's other hand. The feeling was all wrong, her hand far too cold and lacking the strength with witch she usually returned his firm grip. But even so…it was like a little bit of home returned to him. He looked up at a sniffling sound coming from Jackie.

"Jackie…" he said softly, unsure how to comfort her. He was in very human territory again. Very out of his league.

"I never thought I'd see her again," she said in a tearstained whisper, "My little girl." Through her tears, Jackie smiled down at Rose. "It's just all so muddled," Jackie said, mirroring his thoughts, "She's back, and I feel like part of my heart is back in place, but she was suffering for so long…and she may still be gone. I just…I don't know how to feel."

The Doctor was infinitely thankful that Pete stepped in at that point, sitting on the arm of Jackie's chair and wrapping her in his arms as she cried. He didn't know what he would have said to her, feeling many of the same things himself. Now that he finally had a moment to stop and reflect, the emotions threatened to overwhelm him. Rose was _here_ \- his precious Rose. But not in the way he'd hoped, not in the way she should be. He'd never seen her so still. Even when she was sleeping, she was always tossing, murmuring, and occasionally, making these endearing squeaking noises. The Doctor knew that absence could be as poignant as presence. Any space traveler knew this. The parts of space uninhabited by stars, the desolate landscape of a frozen desert, a mind empty of telepathic chatter…they all told a heartbreaking story when held up to the picture of what should have been. The Void had taken Rose from him before, and now a different sort of void kept her from him still, even as he sat here and held her hand. He reached up to brush a stray lock hair out of her face and hoped someday she'd come back to him.

It was close to dawn when he finally convinced a dozing Jackie and hollow-eyed Pete to get some sleep. He promised he would stay with Rose and would wake them immediately if anything changed. The couple grudgingly left to find an empty room near the infirmary. Though exhaustion tugged at the Doctor as well, he remained with Rose, unwilling to leave her alone for even a moment now that he had her back. He dare not sleep only to find that this was all a dream and Rose was still beyond his reach.

People came and went, Jackie, Pete, and Jack the most common faces second only to Martha and Owen who had come up with some sort of shift strategy so that one of them was always close by. The rest of Jack's team occasionally stopped in, sometimes bringing food and half-hearted attempts to lighten the mood, but the outside world was still turning for them. There were still Weevils to capture and alien contracts to negotiate. The rift that had helped saved Rose from Hell was ever active, wreaking it's usual havoc on Cardiff he had no interest in or care for right now. There was little talking between the room's residents, and the communication that was shared was mostly in murmured whispers. It was driving the Doctor half mad, though most of the time he didn't trust his own voice to break the morgue like atmosphere. He was caught in a fog of exhaustion, anticipation, and dread.

He held out for two days at Rose's bedside before his friends finally staged an intervention.

"Listen Doc," Jack said, flanked by Martha, Gwen, Jackie and Pete, "I know you don't sleep much, but that doesn't mean you can go completely without. She's stable, heavily sedated, and there's nothing more you can do for her right now." The TARDIS chimed in with a hum that conveyed she was more than capable of looking after Rose even without the help of the humans.

"But -" the Doctor started to object to both friends and TARDIS in a gravely voice before Martha chimed in.

"Doctor, Jack's right. We are perfectly able to look after Rose for a few hours while you get cleaned up and get some rest. The last thing we need is for you to work yourself into a state that lands you in a bed next to her."

Martha had folded her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow as she met the Doctor's tired gaze and stared him down. Bloody stubborn humans. Why were all his companions bloody stubborn humans? _Not to mention my bloody stubborn ship! _He thought at the TARDIS, receiving the hint of an amused hum in reply.

He knew they would only pester him until he gave in. He took a breath to speak, but thinking he was about to argue, Jackie broke in before he could get out the first syllable.

"You plan on taking her out of the coma tomorrow, yeah? Well I'm telling you, no one is getting near my daughter until they are in tip top shape, including you Doctor. I'll not have something go wrong because you are too proud to get the same rest you force on the rest of us mere mortals."

The Doctor cut in when Jackie took a breath, "Before I was so rudely interrupted," he glared at her, but there was no true ire behind the look, "I was going to say that a bit of a kip may do me some good."

The Doctor couldn't help but have his metaphorical feathers ruffled by the collective sigh of relief from his audience. As if he would do anything to endanger Rose. Just because he needed some…convincing to take a break, didn't mean he was reckless. Well, not completely reckless…

"Where's Owen," he half-growled, only dimly noting how his exhaustion was making him even more crotchety than his ninth self had been.

"He's sleeping," Martha said in a tone that suggested Owen was the sensible one, "You're stuck with me."

"And more the better for it," he nodded tiredly, "Let me show you the monitors and what to do if anything happens."

Martha's posture eased as she walked over to stand beside him and put a reassuring hand on his arm, "Nothing will happen, Doctor. She'll be fine."

The Doctor wondered at Martha's optimism as he looked down at Rose's tube covered body. Fine? There was nothing fine about this! Those pale cheeks should have rosy color. He should be able to see the amber sparkle of her eyes, hear the sound of her laughter at his stubbornness in refusing to rest. He reached down to lace his fingers with hers, hoping that someday she would return the pressure as he gave her hand a squeeze. No, things were not fine. But maybe someday they would be.

After giving Martha a more than thorough orientation to the infirmary that he knew was mostly redundant, dropping a kiss on Rose's cool forehead, and nodding at the remaining room's occupants, he slunk off to get some rest.

The atmosphere was tense as a small group gathered to see what would happen when the Doctor brought Rose out of the medically induced coma. He was refreshed and stuffed to the brim by Jackie's breakfast fry up and felt all the better for it. Leaving Rose's side for a night of rest had been difficult, but his friends and ship had been right. He could only lend Rose strength if he had his own stores built up. His hands were steady as he reduced the titration of the medications dripping into Rose's IV.

He had already explained the process to Jackie and Pete. Like most people, the were surprised that waking up from a coma wasn't as simple as flipping a switch. Reducing her sedation alone would happen over hours, if not days. And once that was finished and Rose was free to wake up on her own, it would likely be an even longer process, one that had no guaranteed outcome. Consciousness wasn't black and white, awake or asleep.

"Think of the differences you have in alertness in a single day," he'd explained to Jackie over the impressive breakfast spread she'd prepared, "You drink coffee and you're very awake, tea the same, but to a lesser extent. On the other hand, you go on a bender and nothing short of a bucket of ice water could get your attention."

Jackie had scowled at that, to which the Doctor rolled his eyes and assured her, "I'm being figurative here, Jackie. I don't mean you as in you, you, but you as in the average human you."

At Jackie's slightly confused, yet mollified expression, he'd continued, "The point is, a coma isn't just one thing. It's a range of levels of consciousness, just like being awake. Right now Rose was swimming at the very lowest levels, kept just above death so she has time to heal. We're taking away the sedation that's kept her there, but she has a long way to go before she will be able to interact on even a basic level. Sometimes people jump right back to alertness, and sometimes people never get there…" the Doctor had trailed off there, hoping he didn't have to say the words.

Pete had cut in, confirming and simplifying what the Doctor said for his own benefit as well as Jackie's, "So you're saying changes in Rose are going to be slow, if they happen at all,"

"Probably, yes," the Doctor had nodded.

"I'm still gunna be in there when you start the anti-coma-thingy," Jackie pointed a sausage laden fork in his direction.

"Of course," he'd agreed, leaning back the slightest bit from her brandished utensil.

And here they were, watching the Doctor adjust this switch and alter that flow rate. He was glad that he'd had the frank talk with them beforehand, because the anticipation in the room was thick enough even with pragmatism competing in their minds for optimism. Even he had the faint flurries of hope that Rose would blink open her eyes and offer them a smile with the slightest alleviation in sedation. It was pure fantasy, but it seemed that human and Time Lord alike couldn't help but cultivate wishful thinking when they wanted something so badly.

In the span of a few minutes, it was done. The Doctor did one final check of Rose's vitals and then sat down in his seat next to her. Jackie, Pete, and Jack followed suit. Until he repeated the procedure in a few hours, there was nothing to do but partake in more of the waiting that was driving them all half spare.

It took several days for the Doctor to wean Rose off the sedation enough that some level of wakefulness could be achieved if she were ready. They had hoped that Rose would be able to breathe for herself at this point, but she was still reliant on the infirmary machines. Her heart had started beating on it's own, at least. When the device previously anchored to her, finally rescinded the electrodes that had been burrowed into her chest and fell to the floor, unneeded, it had felt like a great breakthrough.

Jack had whooped an picked the Doctor up in an enthusiastic hug that was so tight the Doctor could feel the other man's heart beating in exhilaration through their many layers of clothes. The Doctor had hesitantly woken Jackie and Pete to share the news, but his intrusion into their temporary room on the TARDIS was well received in the wake of the first piece of good tidings. The whole gang had celebrated in their usual fashion that day, with takeout and the bizarre rowdiness of people who lived their lives under a constant cloud of stress.

The evening of light-hearted celebration had done more to clear the Doctor's head than however many hours he'd managed to sleep in the last couple of weeks. He'd stepped out of his fog of guilt, fatigue, and dread to think of something other than Rose and his fear of losing her. He realized that he'd neglected many things, and set about righting that.

He'd surprised Jack by agreeing to a few rounds of a card game from Jack's home world. They'd sat and talked well into the night, the Doctor even laughing once or twice. After Jack had to beg off for some sleep, he'd spent the remainder of the night tinkering with the TARDIS, unhooking the cables to the rift modulator, and restoring her inner workings to a shining gleam. The Old Girl had purred at the attention and sent him continuous waves of assurance that Rose was safe and that she and Owen were looking after her. His tinkering and repairs would help the TARDIS heal more quickly from her manipulating the Void and the familiar, monotonous task was calming.

Now it would be just after dawn in the world outside the TARDIS doors, and the Doctor was puttering towards the kitchen to do something he should have done days ago. If his sense of smell did not deceive him, he'd find Jackie there, making her fantastic tea. It was not her tea he was after though, good as it was.

He hadn't meant to startle her when he plopped a small bottle of pills down next to her cup.

"Er, sorry," he said lamely when she jumped in her seat.

She smiled up at him tiredly, "It's alright sweetheart. Although, sometimes I do think of putting a bell on you. You can be dead quiet when that gob of yours is shut."

He chuckled, both of them knowing that if he'd come after her cuppa had taken effect, he'd have probably gotten a swat along with her tired jest.

The Doctor gestured to the bottle on the table, "Those are for you. Take one with breakfast and one before bed."

Jackie just looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.

"It's a supplement," he said, cursing the Time Lord biology that wasn't quite strong enough to keep his ears from turning red as he explained, "For the…for the, eh, pregnancy…or baby, rather."

"I'm being taken care of just fine by a proper Earth doctor," Jackie was almost affronted, "And I already take all the prenatals and all that."

"I'm sure you are." He replied dryly, "But even the most competent Earth doctor has nothing on the TARDIS and I. She ran a scan and you're low in a few areas. Hence, the pills. I really should have checked earlier. Really Jackie, you can get much better care here than anywhere else. I don't see why you don't -"

"You ran a scan on me without my permission?!" Jackie interrupted him with a screech, "I told you, I'll not have any alien nonsense messing with this baby!"

"Well, technically it wasn't me," he explained, but took a few steps back to put the table between them, "It was the TARDIS, but she was right to do so. All this stress you've been under is no good for you or the fetus. On Earth, they are just starting to understand that maternal stress causes all kinds of problems that can stay with a child for life. They are nowhere near fashioning supplements to counteract it."

The fight seemed to leave Jackie in a rush, "I'm hurtin' the baby?" she asked in a horrified whimper.

The Doctor deemed it safe to draw up a chair and sit beside her, "No, Jackie, that's not what I meant, I -"

Jackie looked at him crossly, "If it's not what you meant, then why'd you say it, eh?"

"I didn't," he sputtered, "I just meant that the TARDIS and I can do more for the two of you than the collective intelligence of those ape doctors you're so fond of."

"So now you're insulting my competence as a mum _and_ my species?" she narrowed her eyes.

The Doctor was fully flustered now. Why was it that speaking to Jackie Tyler could unman him in a way that hordes of aggressive lifeforms could not.

To his surprise and relief, Jackie laughed, "Oh you're too much fun to wind up," she snorted, "I'll take your pills, Doctor, and may even thank you for the concern, but if you think you're gunna deliver this baby…"

"Gods no!" the Doctor said, horrified.

"Fair enough."

"Good."

"Yes."

The Doctor was at a loss for how he was going to rescue this conversation and remove the horrifying imagery of Jackie delivering from his synapses when the TARDIS burst into his thoughts with an anxious thrum.

He must have made some move or expression, because Jackie was looking at him curiously when he came back to himself.

"Doctor?" she asked hesitantly.

"It's Rose," he said before dashing in the direction of the infirmary.


	12. Chapter 12

Martha couldn't have been more relieved when she intercepted the Doctor in the corridor as she ran to fetch him. She didn't question how he'd known to come so quickly, mere moments after the onset of Rose's distress. She had more pressing matters to think about than the enigma that was the last of the Time Lords.

Rose was waking up, and it wasn't the peaceful and joyous process they'd all hoped for. No, right now it was rather loud and violent.

"What is it? What's happened?" the Doctor asked as they ran together back towards the infirmary.

"Dunno," she panted out a clipped report between breaths, "Everything was quiet. Seemed steady. Then, she…Doctor, she started moving! Her legs. Then her head. Tossing a bit. I thought, blimey, she's waking up! But then the monitor - telemetry - started going off. Blood pressure spike. Tried to figure it out. But Rose…she started thrashing. Doctor, I think she's in pain..."

The Doctor swore profusely in a language she didn't recognize and pulled ahead of her, moving quicker than any human could. She followed him towards the sound of half a dozen monitors blaring out their warnings.

When she made it back to the infirmary, the Doctor was already whirling around the room, checking monitors and asking for Owen's report on the situation as the other doctor worked to finish restraining Rose's flailing limbs.

For a moment she felt a bit lost. The noise from the monitors and the commotion coming from the room's occupants all swirled together with the mild hypoxia from her sprint through the corridors, and her exhaustion of being at the end of the TARDIS' night shift. She felt outside the situation, even outside herself. Like it was a dream…

"Martha!" the Doctor barked once he noticed her, bringing her back to reality. She shook her head to clear it and rushed to his side, ready to help. "For the love of Clom, sedate her already! Use the small green bottle, yes, just there. 1.7 milligrams. Then titrate the sedation back up."

"Until she's out again or back to the previous levels," Martha asked, referring to the dose they had given her to keep her in a coma.

"Previous levels," the Doctor nodded, "I don't want her to feel a bloody thing until we figure out what's wrong and fix it!"

He went back to his manic scrolling through Rose's biological stats and Martha hurried over to administer the medication.

She sighed in relief when Rose's frantic thrashing slowed and finally stopped. The deep lines of pain that had lined the poor girls face softened. Martha felt like she could finally catch her breath and take stock of things. She looked at the clock and marveled that only a handful of minutes had passed since the early morning quiet was disrupted.

The Doctor came over to join her and Owen at Rose's bedside and they all took a moment to regroup. The Doctor bent down to brush the hair out of Rose's face and adjusted the blankets before turning back to the monitors and leading them into their next task - finding out what exactly was going on.

Together they ran test after test, far more than were in any text book or medical journal in Martha's time. She swore the Doctor even made some up on the spot. But after several hours nothing conclusive was showing up. Martha shared a worried glance with Owen as the Doctor became increasingly frantic. He'd run his hands through his hair so many times he looked like a hedgehog on uppers. As he ran from one monitor to another and back to the main computer, he seemed more and more unhinged. Finally, with a colorful round of swearing, he pushed back from the computer, and stood still in the middle of the room.

"Nothing," he said, some control back in his voice, "Bloody nothing." He kicked the nearby cupboard and then winced. "Anatomical structures in tact, functioning is as expected…" he puffed out an exasperated breath. "And yet, there's obviously something very, very wrong. And there's nothing I can…" he trailed off and Martha didn't like the determined look that slowly took over his face.

"Doctor?" she hazarded, "What are you -"

"You two," the Doctor cut her off, "You're not to interrupt me, no matter what. Got it?"

"Interrupt?" Martha asked, her worry increasing as the Doctor started sticking electrodes to his forehead.

"I'm going to make a telepathic connection and I can't stress this enough, I. Must. Not. Be. Interrupted. I don't know what I'll find once I'm in there and if there's something I can fix, I can't stop part way. It could fry her brain."

Martha shot a worried look at Owen, but the other doctor seemed more intrigued than worried.

"You sure about this mate?" Owen asked.

"Absolutely not," the Doctor replied and Martha was startled to hear the edge of fear in his voice. She didn't understand what exactly he was about to do, but she had a feeling it wasn't in his comfort zone.

Martha opened her mouth to protest, but Owen beat her to it, "Alright then. What do we do? Other than not bother you, that is."

"Martha," the Doctor barked, "You sit here and watch this monitor. If the stats go into the red, push this button," he handed her a control with a large green button on it. Him and his big buttons, _seriously_!

"Err, alright then," she said, wishing the Doctor would properly explain what was going on for once.

"And Owen, you camp out at the door and make sure no one comes in. The Tardis should have locked the door, but I'm not taking any chances."

"Right," Owen saluted before walking over to man his post. He didn't seem to mind being demoted to security guard status.

"I don't now how long this will take or what will happen. Just do your jobs and nothing more. After it's done, take care of Rose first," and with that ominous directive the Doctor sat in the chair next to Rose's bed and thrust his fingers to her temples as if he were diving into a churning ocean.

Immediately the monitor in front of her went haywire. It let out an urgent sounding series of beeps and it was all Martha could do not to press the button that would hopefully put an end to this. She sat with eyes glued to the screen as the stats turned from green to yellow to orange. Her body was tense, finger poised to press the button at the first sign of red. But after a few tense seconds, the stats evened out, fluctuating steadily between orange and yellow. Still, she remained at the ready.

After about another minute, things started gong south again. The beeping increased in frequency and without warning the yellow jumped to red. But before Martha could press the button, the Doctor gasped out a huge breath and tore his fingers from Rose's temples. Eyes wide he flung himself back, falling out of the chair and sprawling flat on the ground.

"Doctor!" she cried, abandoning the monitor to help her friend.

Owen was already there, helping the Doctor sit up and grabbing a glass of water that has appeared on the bedside table. She crouched down to be on the Doctor's level and waited for him to compose himself.

Finally, after several deep breaths, he met her gaze. With eyes wider than she'd ever seen them he panted out, "Rassilon, she's a mess in there. I've never seen anything like it."

Not understanding any of this, all she could do is grab his arm as he continued to steady himself. Eventually he got himself up and onto the chair.

"Her mind," the Doctor said shaking his head in horrified awe, "No organization whatsoever."

"Err," Martha said glancing at Owen to see if he understood any better than she did. He just shrugged.

"Sorry," the Doctor said, picking up on their confusion. He pinched the bridge of his nose for a second before he explained, "Nearly all sentient creatures, and certainly humans have an order to their minds. For some people it's like a library, or like a hallway with doors, or a garden. Even the most basic of minds have something in place to file away their thoughts and experiences. But Rose…" he took another few deep breaths, "It's just chaos. Flashing lights and roaring sound…It's like the inside of a tornado."

"What does that mean?" Owen asked. Not for the first time Martha wondered what the hell Torchwood employees got up to for him to take all of this so calmly.

"She's…" the Doctor swallowed, "Lost."

Martha felt her gut turn to ice, "Do you mean…forever?" It couldn't be. Not after all the Doctor had been through. The Universe couldn't be that cruel.

"No idea," the Doctor said, "I don't even know why. Or how. Something like this can happen to highly telepathic beings who have been through certain types of trauma, but Rose is human. She shouldn't be vulnerable to damage on this scale."

The Doctor looked so lost as he contemplated the state of Rose's mind that Martha felt the need to say something, anything to fill the growing silence.

"Can you, like, go back in there and fix it?" she asked.

"I'd say not," he said with conviction, "I'm lucky I didn't get lost in there myself. If I tried to muck around again, I'd likely go mad and overload Rose's synapses in the process."

"Ooookay then. No more mind-melding or whatever that was," Owen said, "What do we do then?"

"Nothing," the Doctor sighed, "Her scans are all fine."

"Can't fix what's not broken," agreed Owen.

"And what appears to be broken can't be fixed, at least not any way I know of," the Doctor finished.

"But Doctor," Martha offered, "We know she was waking up. That's good, yeah."

The Doctor snorted, "Not sure she would agree."

"Yeah, suppose," Martha sighed. And with nothing left to do, she loitered around the medbay until the Doctor shooed her off to get some sleep.


	13. Chapter 13

Weeks later, the Doctor watched medication drip from the IV bag into the line connected to Rose's chest. He was captivated by the steady drip drip drip as if the small monotonous movement was the birth of a galaxy. Despite his usual nature to want to explore and constantly be on the move, he'd settled into a routine as each day on the TARIDS passed much the same as the last. The waiting and hoping and hours next to a sedated Rose's bedside in the infirmary started to seem like the only life the Doctor had ever lived. It was easier in some ways, forgetting about the outside world and living from one of Rose's heartbeats to the next. The tug of adventure and novelty didn't pull quite so hard as it used to. He didn't feel quite as sad or anxious. But neither did he feel the exhilaration or pure joy his travels often brought. Well, his travels with Rose, that is. Instead he was just sort of…numb. Better than despondency, but not as good as _living_.

There were a few events of note that broke up the monotony as the days passed. Rose started breathing on her own a couple days after she had started to wake up. As long as the Doctor carefully monitored the sedation levels, she could get by with the help of an oxygen mask instead of being dependent on the ventilator. Unlike when Rose graduated from needing machines to keep her heart beating, this improvement was celebrated simply with relieved smiles and another round of tea. The Doctor wasn't sure if his friends knew he wasn't up for a big celebration, or if they were all just as tired as he was. He knew that he wasn't the only one pushing his sleep cycle. After all, somehow the universe had kept on moving outside their little bubble and his friends had responsibilities.

Pete was trying to balance his work at Torchwood and time with his new family, and Martha couldn't keep up working full shifts at A&E and then coming back to Torchwood to help the Doctor care for Rose. Jack's team had managed ok despite their distant concern for Rose, but Jack had been as harried and overworked as Martha and Pete running between his work at Torchwood and Rose's bedside.

It was two weeks, fourteen hours, and six minutes after Rose came back from the void that the Doctor made the decision to take the TARDIS into the vortex for a few days at a time instead of remaining parked at Torchwood. It really was best for everyone if the TARDIS spent some time in the Vortex and cheated the fact that the world kept turning. Pete would work remotely when they were in the Vortex and stop in for meetings when the TARDIS spent a few hours grounded. Jackie usually remained on the TARDIS with Rose unless she had a prenatal appointment or went on a rare shopping trip. They alone stayed on as the TARDIS continuous residents. Jack and Martha switched off who would stay in the TARDIS and who would go back to life on Earth. Occasionally, neither of them were available, but Jackie, Pete and he made due with a schedule so that at least one person was always with Rose.

Right now, it was early morning relative Earth time, though time of day was only a construct for the benefit of his human companions as they drifted through the vortex. The Doctor was watching over Rose as Jackie and Pete slept, and the other's were going about business on Earth. He stared at the mesmerizing pattern of IV drips and forced his brain to focus, to use this quiet time to contemplate his options. It wasn't a new thought process for him. He'd agonized over this same decision ever since Rose's first sensation upon beginning to wake up had been agony. His choices, then and now, were to keep her sedated and try every few days to wake her up, hoping that whatever was causing her pain would have resolved as she slept, or to try to wean her off sedation for good and hope she could fight through whatever was causing her distress. For the first few days, the first option, the safe option, had seemed like the obvious choice. By the end of the first week in this holding pattern of putting Rose back under only minutes after she started to wake up, the Doctor had started to waver. Now, just over a month after Rose had been put back under to protect her from pain, the Doctor was starting to think this path was a fruitless endeavor.

The thought of causing Rose pain made him feel physically sick. But what if the only way for her to overcome this, was to fight it? What if keeping her sedated was holding her back from the things she could achieve if he'd only let her try?

He laughed bitterly to himself, thinking how many times some form of this debate had come up between the two of them when they'd traveled together. Her tendency to be jeopardy friendly drove him mad; his desire to protect her was rivaled only by her desire to make her own choices. Choices that usually put her in danger and through extra hardship, but ultimately back at his side. He'd sent her home in the TARDIS on the gamestation and she'd ripped through his ship and become a golden goddess to get back to him. He'd pushed her away, putting other women between them, and she'd just called him on it and asserted her place. Again, by his side. He'd tricked her into going to Pete's world with her family, and it had been less than a second before she'd come back, bringing the small Tyler clan with her. Back to him. She'd always figured it out, always come through, always fought. Was this just another time he was holding her back?

Oh, if he could just talk to her, just ask her what she wanted…but suddenly he realized that he didn't need to. He knew her, brilliant woman that she was. He knew her stubbornness and fighting spirit, and her willingness to do anything it took to come back to him. He knew, oh he _knew_ that she would want to fight.

And if he believed in anything, he believed in _her_.

With steady hands, he shut off the sedation and gave her a chance.

It didn't take long until the monitors started beeping to signal her distress. The Doctor was glad that he was the only one in the room at this early hour. When Rose's faced first twitched, he caught his breath in anticipation. Was she waking up properly this time?

No. No, of course she wasn't. The twitching of her face turned into a grimace and when she finally opened her eyes, they were unfocused and glazed with pain.

"Rose?" he asked, voice shaking at seeing her amber eyes for the first time since he'd lost her. When she didn't answer, or even acknowledge his presence, another little piece of him broke. He told himself that it didn't mean anything, that she still had the time and capacity to improve, but looking into her eyes and seeing no sentience staring back at him was devastating.

He did his best to push emotion aside and set about with some simple tests to see if she was reacting to any outside stimulus. He found that she did have a basic response in her pupils to light, but most other things he tried didn't elicit a reaction. Was she trapped in the chaos of her mind? Was that what made her unable to interact with the world beyond her skin? Or was everything that made Rose Tyler the wonderful woman he'd fallen in love with gone, leaving only primitive reflexes behind? Only time would tell. And time she had. He could keep her body alive for decades, centuries even if he worked at it. But would he, should he, if this was to be her life?

The Doctor ran a hand down his face and sat back to watch as Rose's grimace grew more pronounced and her twitching muscles evolved into writhing. It was a heartbreaking sight, even more than when she had been deathly still.

By the time Jackie and Pete shuffled into the med bay still in their nightclothes, the Doctor had had to restrain Rose to prevent her from hurting herself or falling off the bed as she thrashed about. She'd started to vocalize, but like her movements, the sounds had no purpose and only reflected her discomfort in moans, whimpers, and screams.

Jackie's knees nearly buckled as Pete and she walked towards the infirmary. Was that? Yes! It was her daughters voice! Something she hadn't heard since Rose came screaming through the Void. Shock and hope bloomed inside of her, until she stepped into the room and her gaze landed on her daughter. Rose was awake, at least in some form, but Jackie instantly knew it still wasn't really her daughter tossing and turning in that infirmary bed. Paired with the look on Rose's face, Jackie understood the horrible sounds Rose was making were no more than a reaction to whatever was hurting her.

As if the scene wasn't already bad enough, Jackie then noticed the Doctor and her heart sank further. The man, for he certainly was no powerful Lord of Time in this moment, was sitting with his face in one hand, his other arm extended in a futile effort to calm Rose by running his hand through her hair. There was despondency in every line of his body.

"Oh," Jackie breathed, "Oh no." And then her knees did go out and poor Pete struggled to catch her.

The next Jackie knew, she was in a reclining chair with cool water being dribbled into her mouth by a terrified looking Pete. She sputtered on the water, pushed it aside and offered Pete a, "Thanks, love," before trying to sit up fully.

"Jacks, why don't you just give it a minute, eh?" Pete said with a hand on her shoulder.

"Oh, I'm fine. Don't look at me like that! I am! Don't know what came over me," she felt herself flushing at the scene she'd caused.

"But the baby…" Pete protested.

Oh god! How had she forgotten?! Had she hurt the baby when she fell? Was something wrong? Her hands dropped to her belly as her eyes sought for answers from her worried husband.

"The baby's fine, Jackie," the subdued voice was the Doctor's. He walked into her line of sight and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I did a scan while you were out, and everything's fine. I'm so sorry you had to walk in and see…I'm sorry, I should have warned you…"

Despite the relief she felt course through her and her exasperation at the Doctor's guilt complex, she heard herself mutter, "Everything's not fine. My daughter is over there lookin' like she's possessed. What's going on Doctor?" she pleaded.

"I don't know, Jackie," oh how she wanted to smack that apologetic look off his face. But at the same time, she was desperate for answers.

"What do you mean, 'I don't know,' you know something! And you"ll bloody well tell me what's going on!" her voice rose in volume and pitch with each word.

"Easy Jacks," Pete warned, but she waved him off, and pushed herself up until she was sitting.

"Jackie, you really do need to calm down, the baby is fine, but you are obviously exhausted and under far too much stress -"

"Oh shove it," Jackie grumbled, "I'd be in a whole lot less stress if you would tell me what the hell is going on!"

"Right," she was proud to detect the slightest bit of wariness in the Doctor's eyes. Good she still could have that effect on him. He needed it once in a while. "I really don't know exactly what's going on with Rose, right now."

At a glare from her, he hastily continued, "But I do know that whatever was causing her discomfort when she first came off sedation is still at work here. I…I made the decision to ease off the sedation anyway. I…er…thought she…I thought Rose would want the chance to fight through it. I should have asked you…"

Jackie reached out to grab the Doctor's hand, "You know her as well as I do sweetheart. Maybe even better, much as it pains me to say it. But regardless, I reckon, you're right. I hate to see her like this," Jackie glanced at her daughter who was still whimpering and thrashing in the bed, "but maybe this is part of it, something she has to get through on her own."

"Maybe," the Doctor nodded.

"Is she…that is, does she know we're here?" she asked.

"I don't know. Maybe?" the Doctor shrugged, "Probably not though. Her eyes are open, and she's awake, but she's not…she's not Rose. She hasn't responded to anything other than to show some basic reflexes."

"So what do we do?" Jackie asked, coming to terms with where they were and already looking forward. The Doctor had made the right decision. As painful as this next step was to witness, it was still moving forward. For the first time in weeks, Jackie was thinking beyond just the next few hours. It felt wonderful. And terrifying.

"Wait, I guess," the Doctor shrugged and both Pete and Jackie let out a frustrated groan at the familiar answer. All they bloody do is wait and hope, eat and sleep, and wait and hope some more. This slight change in Rose had made Jackie realize just how sick of it she was.

"She may calm down on her own, and if not, I'll sedate her so she can get some rest tonight." The Doctor continued.

"And there's nothing we can do except the usual," Jackie grumbled, but to her own ears she sounded more tired than irritated.

"Actually," the Doctor brightened slightly, "I was thinking that we could do a sponge bath for her instead of the regular sonic cleaning. Or rather, er, you can. Don't think Rose would want me to…and of course I would if there was no one else…but since you are here…"

"Course!" Jackie agreed easily, happy to finally have something to _do_.

"Brilliant," the Doctor beamed. "So then Pete and I will just step out then. If you're sure you're feeling up to it."

Jackie jumped up out of the chair to prove her assertion that she was "Just fine, thanks."

She collected a soft sponge and a basin of warm water and headed over to Rose's bedside. The Doctor had shown her what tubes go where and what not to bump so she felt rather confident and competent about her task. Just before she was about to begin, the Doctor poked his head back in.

"Oh, and Jackie!" he said, "Pete gave me the idea that we can try to interact with her now. Just because she doesn't react to things, doesn't mean she's not somewhere in there and able to feel and see and hear. And the more things we try, the more likely she'll eventually respond."

"Oi! Mind her privacy!" Jackie scolded, but she was smiling, feeling that things may just be looking up.


	14. Chapter 14

The Doctor sat nursing a cup of post-supper tea after he'd talked himself nearly hoarse telling Rose all kinds of stories by her bedside. Once he had started talking to her, he found it was difficult to stop. Even though there was a chance, probably a good chance that she wasn't actually listening, it didn't stop him from finding the hours of one-sided conversations somewhat therapeutic. For the last week, the only time he wasn't babbling away at an unsettled Rose was when he was eating or resting.

It was still a couple of hours until he'd start Rose on her dose of evening sedation so she could get a good night's rest and a break from her constant distress. Jackie was off doing…whatever it was she did when she wasn't in the infirmary, so it was just him and Pete at Rose's bedside. As usual Pete was typing away on his primitive laptop.

"Doctor, can you have a look at this? There were some strange energy readings over on the West End last night," Pete's voice broke the silence that had settled over the room while the Doctor rested his voice.

"Sure," he nodded, scrunching up his face when his voice came out a bit raspy. He picked up his cuppa and walked over so he could see what Pete was working on. The two of them spent a few hours every day going over whatever Torchwood was up to. It gave the Doctor a chance to take his mind beyond the coral walls of his ship and continue to monitor the workings of the new Torchwood.

This particular case was disappointingly simple, taking the Doctor mere minutes to figure out once he saw the data on Pete's computer. Afterwards, he stretched and contemplated what he could do to stay busy until Jackie came and kicked him out. Finding everything in order, he shrugged and headed back to what was now his reserved spot in the chair to the right of Rose's bed.

Just as he was about to sit down, the TARDIS pitched on a rare blip of vortex turbulence and the Doctor found himself flailing his arms so he didn't end up in a heap on top of Rose. While he was successful in bracing himself before he could smack into her, he hadn't been able to hold onto his tea. The cup was now shattered on the coral floor of the infirmary and most of the contents of the cup were splattered over Rose's sheets and his trousers.

"Bloody hell!" the Doctor cursed, "Reflexes are rubbish lately." _Maybe he shouldn't be pushing his sleep cycle quite so much?_ "And what a mess. Sorry love, I've gotten your bed all wet." It occurred to him that apologizing to Rose was rather silly as both the spill and the sentiment were met with only her blank, wandering stare, but he couldn't help himself.

Pete seemed to have noticed plenty though. The man's chuckles irritated the Doctor for a few seconds before he looked down at the mess he'd made and couldn't help laughing himself.

"Oh laugh all you want, Director Tyler, but you're going to help me change the bedding," he said as he picked up the shards that used to be his teacup. Pete sobered at that, probably remembering the last time they had tried to change the sheets while Rose wasn't sedated.

"Alright, I'll lift her up and you can do the sheets," the Doctor directed a few minutes later once he had finished cleaning up the shattered china. Pete stood by ready to remove the tea-damp bedclothes.

With Pete's nod, the Doctor carefully scooped Rose up, holding her just over the bed. They had done this many times before, but there had always been at least four people or there had been some heavy sedation in the mix. Soon the Doctor was struggling not to drop Rose as she went in for a violent round of screaming and thrashing. Just when he was sure he would drop her, Pete reached over from the other side of the bed and helped to steady Rose.

"Blimey," the Doctor panted, "How are we going to do this?"

"Dunno," Pete said through clenched teeth as he struggled to keep Rose from banging her head against the bedside table, "I've almost gotten the bed stripped though. Where are the new sheets?"

"In the linen closet, two halls over. Of course. There's a reason why I don't do domestics, you know. Why didn't we get Jackie's help again?" the Doctor asked.

"Because we are two manly men who thought we could handle this ourselves." Pete answered wryly.

"Right," the Doctor nodded, "We're complete prats aren't we?"

"Pretty much," Pete agreed before glancing around the room for a solution. His eyes brightened when they fell on the rocking chair in the corner that Martha had dragged in weeks ago. "Here, I'll sit over there and hold her while you get the sheets. I would get them myself, but I reckon I'd get lost on the way."

"Alright," the Doctor nodded, ready to get this over with.

Once Pete was seated, the Doctor eased Rose into his arms. Despite the fact that he'd felt more harried than anything the last few minutes, he still felt the loss when he relinquished Rose. He couldn't help remembering what seemed like a lifetime ago when he'd been jealous of this universe's original Pete.

The Doctor made quick work of locating the linen room, selecting the appropriate bedclothes, and heading back to the infirmary. Hopefully Pete had managed alright.

When the Doctor was a few doors away, he noticed a new sound filtering through the corridors that made him pause. He stopped to listen with his head cocked to the side. It was humming, but not of TARDIS origin. The Doctor resumed his steps, but slowly this time. He eased up to the open door and peeked into the infirmary as quietly as possible. He caught his breath at what he saw inside.

Pete was holding Rose as if she were a large child, rocking her back and forth as he gazed lovingly at her face and hummed an earth lullaby. And by some miracle, Rose was calm and relaxed in her sort-of-father's arms. The muscles that had been taught in distress during her every unmedicated moment were soft and lax. The only movement came from her eyes, which still wandered, but seemed to focus every now and then on Pete's face. It was the first time Rose had been at peace without heavy sedation. It was the first time she had reacted to anything at all.

The Doctor remained a quiet observer until the moisture in his eyes blurred the room.

Unnoticed by an enthralled looking Pete, the Doctor retreated from the doorway and padded down the hall. It was a near perfect scene he'd just witnessed, full of love and hope. But it was still missing one thing.

Jackie grumbled as a hand shook her awake, "S' can't be morning' yet Pete. Le' me sleep."

"Jackie," the sound of the Doctor's soft voice raised alarm in her that cut right through any drowsiness.

"Rose?!" she asked, half panicked. Why else would the Doctor be waking her up from what had been a marvelous after supper nap? She'd made damn sure he knew to never wake a pregnant lady unless it was an emergency.

"She's fine," the Doctor assured her with an odd smile on his face, "Really Jackie, maybe even better than fine. C'mon. I'll show you."

Confused and groggy, Jackie stretched in the library's easy chair and got up to follow the Doctor out into the hallway.

"What's going on," she yawned, "And why 'ave you got linens?"

"Oh," the Doctor chuckled, still in his oddly elevated mood, "I nearly forgot. I was going to do it, but I'll hand them off to you. When you're ready, The Tardis will let me know and we can change Rose's sheets."

"When I'm ready?" Jackie wondered if it was the last vestiges of sleep or the mad alien who was confusing her, "Did you wake me up from a nap to change Rose's sheets?! What's wrong with you!? I'm pregnant, you buffoon! I need my rest! M sleepin' for two, you know!" She couldn't help but raise her voice in growing irritation. Apparently he didn't get the memo the last three times he'd woken her up. The alien was worse than a toddler sometimes!

"No, no….you'll see what I mean. Here," he motioned for her to enter the infirmary, "after you."

For a moment after she entered the room, Jackie felt transported back years to the last time she'd stumbled on a scene like this. Pete, in a rocking chair, holding Rose as he sung her a lullaby. It was the same one her first Pete had always sung to Rose when she was a baby.

"Oh" she let out a breathless sob, hands flying to her mouth. Pete, intent on Rose, didn't hear.

"She's not sedated," the Doctor whispered, unwilling to break the sanctity of this moment, "she's just…calm. I thought you should be here. To see this."

Eyes glued to the picture in front of her, she found the Doctor's free hand and gave it a squeeze before stepping into the room to join her family.

Pete didn't look up, though he acknowledged her approach by reaching out his free arm and wrapping it around her waist as she came to his side.

"My first Pete used to sing the very same thing to Rose when she was a baby," Jackie said with a voice thick with emotion.

"I'd always planned to…but my first Jackie and I never…" he trailed off and they were both silent for a long time. Finally he said, in a choked voice, "I never got to hold her when she was little. But…I can hold her now."

Jackie nodded against the side of his head. They stayed like that for some time, with Pete humming and rocking as they watched their daughter's eyes grow heavy and finally close when she drifted into a contented sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

From that night forward, someone always sat in the rocking chair and helped Rose into a peaceful sleep. No one seemed to have quite the knack for it Pete did, however. Jackie had stated proudly that her first Pete had always been able to calm even the fussiest Rose when she was a baby. It seemed Pete 2.0 had a similar set of skills.

If only the peace of Rose's slumber could last though. Every night after twenty minutes or an hour or three, Rose would wake back up thrashing and screaming. Just like an infant, she could be lulled back to sleep, but just like with an infant, nights were exhausting for all involved. To spare Jackie and Pete, who would have to deal with sleep deprivation soon enough when Rose's little sibling was born, and more importantly, to spare Rose restless, agony filled nights, the Doctor went back to sedating her so she could get a solid night's rest. The rocking chair routine persisted though; so each night Rose would fall asleep naturally and then get some help staying asleep with the sedation. It was working out rather brilliantly.

Pete never seemed to tire of the nightly routine, and Jackie and the Doctor never lost their awe at the scene of a middle-aged man rocking his adult sort-of daughter to sleep like it was the most natural thing in the world.

During the days, the Doctor wracked his brain for ways to make Rose's waking hours as comfortable as her hours spent sleeping. Since rocking worked so well in the evenings, he had fixed up her bed with the ability to rock with the press of a button. It did seem to help when Rose was agitated. Now that it was apparent she could at least sense something from the world beyond her body, he, Jackie, and Pete had tried a number of things to help facilitate comfort and further interaction. Temperature seemed to have no effect on Rose, but soft blankets seemed to sooth her. Sometimes, running a hand through her hair could quiet her thrashing, even during a bad bout of it. She didn't seem to respond to sound, but the Doctor asked the Tardis to play some background music in the infirmary anyway. If nothing else, it helped to alleviate the morgue like feeling of the place. All this seemed to have helped Rose become more comfortable. She still seemed to be in pain, and had bouts of horrible screaming and convulsing, but now those times were broken up by calm, peaceful moments. It was something.

The Doctor sat in his usual spot enjoying his seemingly new favorite activities - nursing a cup to tea and enjoying one of Rose's calm spells. He was the only one on board the Tardis at the moment. Pete was at work, the poor man, and Jackie was getting ready to head out for some dreadful shopping trip. Martha, Ianto, and Tosh had conspired to take the older woman out to purchase some baby clothes and there had been much irritating chatter about it all morning. Jack would probably wander in at some point, and the Doctor looked forward to his company. In the meantime, the Doctor had settled in with a tablet full of Rose's medical data he'd compiled over the last few weeks. Unlike Pete's primitive piece of junk that barely held a handful of terabytes, his tablet was from the 32nd century and could not only hold, but analyze just about any measurable statistic he could get from Rose's monitors. Anything from number of neurons firing per second to her observed reactions to various stimuli were recorded in the tablet and the Doctor sorted through it looking for trends that could give him insight into Rose's condition.

After a few minutes he brought the tea up to his mouth, found it unpleasantly tepid and used his sonic to heat it up before taking a second long sip. He glanced down at Rose and froze when he saw her eyes open and fixed in his direction.

"Rose?" he tried, hearts speeding up.

She blinked but otherwise gave no hint of a response.

Still, she seemed to be focusing directly on him, and for a longer period of time than she usually focused on anything. There even seemed to be some intent behind her gaze. It was the first time that she really seemed to be _looking_ at something. Testing his hypothesis, he set his tablet down and walked over to the other side of the bed, taking another sip of his tea as he went. Sure enough her gaze followed him. His heart leapt into his throat and he couldn't help the large grin that took over his face.

"Look at that Rose! You're following me, clever girl!" he crowed. Testing this new improvement once again, he set down his cuppa and moved to the foot of her bed. When her focus remained fixed on the side of the bed he had just left, he deflated slightly. That is until he really studied her and figured out what she was looking at. The tea! She must have smelled her mum's special hand-mixed recipe!

This was good. Beyond good. It was completely brilliant! It was the first time Rose had attended to one thing for more than a few seconds and it was the first time she'd seem to react to smell. And smell was a brilliant sense. Smell was closely related to memory, which is why it made perfect sense that her mum's cuppa was what elicited this response. How many times had Rose and Jackie sat and talked or cried or watched telly over this brilliant concoction of tannins and free-radicals. Not only was smell closely related to memory, but it was also related to…

The Doctor let out a very un-Time Lordy whoop and asked his ship to look after Rose as he went to find Jackie.

Jackie was so, so close to a much needed day on the town with the lovely Torchwood girls and that nicely dressed bloke…Onto she thought his name was. She'd overcome her guilt at doing something just for fun, gotten a good night's sleep for once, and had even picked out a rather posh outfit from the magic closet in her room on the Tardis. As much as the alienness of that ship still gave her the shivers, she thought she could get used to the endless wardrobe.

Jackie had one foot over the threshold of the lift out of the dreary Torchwood cavern when the Doctor flew out of the TARDIS babbling a mile a minute about tea of all things. She knew he was rather partial to tea, hers in particular since it supposedly saved the world that Christmas after he regenerated, but really, it was just tea.

"Shut it!" she yelled at him, stopping his energetic spew of words. "I'm off to the shops," she reminded him jerking her head back at the group already in the lift, "We can talk all about tea later when I'm back." _And I have a rag to read while I tune you out _she thought to herself. "Or even better, you can go talk to Jack or that flying dinosaur or that creepy hand in a jar you have kicking around the library."

"Jackie…" the Doctor tried to cut in.

"Oh yes, I should just drop everything now, should I? I'm sure tea is much more important than anything a silly human could want to do," she drawled. As much as she loved him, she sometimes wanted to throttle the alien.

Jackie frowned when her scathing remarks didn't seem to dampen the Doctors mood in the slightest. He was still standing there, rocking on his heels and grinning at her like he'd found the stash of marmalade she'd hidden under the sink.

"Jackie," he beamed, "would you care to make a cuppa?"

"Are you serious?" she groaned, "What do I mean? Of course you are. Doctor I just made you a cuppa not a half hour ago. If you need another so badly, make one yourself and let me be." She closed her eyes and took a couple deep breaths, trying to get back the enthusiasm she'd had for this trip to the shops.

"But if I made the tea, it wouldn't be the same!" he winged, "It has to be _your_ tea. The famous Jackie Tyler Cuppa!"

"Flattery will get you nowhere, Doctor," she grumbled.

"What about promising you that I won't leave you alone until you comply?" he half singsonged. "I'll follow you around aaaaalllll day long. In and out of every shop, up and down every street."

"I'll make you a cuppa," she said, "I'll make you a cuppa and dump it over that hedgehog hair of yours."

But she was already throwing the girls and Onto an apologetic look as she made her way back to the TARDIS. She knew it would be the only way he'd let her have any kind of peace today. And it would only take a few minutes.

To Jackie's surprise, the overly-jubilant Doctor led her not to the kitchen, but to the infirmary. She felt a pain of guilt when she saw her writhing daughter. Maybe it was for the best that she stay here. Maybe Rose needed her. And even if she didn't, why should Jackie go have some fun when Rose was still so poorly?

"Here ya go Jackie," the Doctor beamed at her from the far side of the room, "the Old Girl has everything spread out for you!"

He was right. All the makings for tea were right there on the counter that usually held various medical doodads. "Is it sanitary to be makin' tea in here?" she sniffed.

"Perfectly," the Doctor said happily. What had gotten into him? Did he get into the sugar again? Maybe he _had_ found the marmalade after all. "Well," he entreated, "go on!"

It really was only the fact that she knew he wouldn't leave her alone until she complied that she walked up to the counter, and with a scowl, started putting the water to boil in the electric kettle and mixing the herbs into her favorite blend.

A few minutes later Jackie was pouring the steeped tea into two cups. Might as well have one herself. She reached for the milk, knowing the Doctor liked almost half the cup filled with that and sugar, but he stopped her.

"Oh, no milk," he said still grinning away like he was in on some joke she wasn't party to, "Rose takes two sugars and a squeeze of lemon."

Jackie glanced over at Rose meaningfully. Rose wasn't exactly in a tea drinking state. But then she did a double take. She has been so engrossed in the ritual of making tea that she hadn't noticed Rose quieting down. She looked closer and was Rose?…Yes! Rose was looking at her! Or at least in the general direction. She'd gotten so used to Rose's constantly wandering eyes that to see her so focused was startling.

"Doctor?" Jackie asked shakily, "What's goin' on?"

"Why don't you bring that cuppa over by Rose. Let her smell it a bit," Jackie didn't quite know what to think or feel, but she finished making the tea to Rose's usual specification and padded over to the chair by Rose's bedside. She looked hesitantly at the Doctor, who was on the other side of the bed, raising the head of the bed slightly so Rose was in a more upright position.

"Go on," he encouraged her.

Shrugging her shoulders, Jackie slowly brought the cuppa closer to Rose, watching as the steam rose in swirls to the coral ceiling.

And then…

Rose sniffed.

Jackie nearly dropped the cup in surprise and looked towards the Doctor to confirm that her mind wasn't playing tricks on her. How many times had she been sure that Rose was showing some sign of communicating and it was really just a whimper or reflex. But not this time. This time, the Doctor grinned back at her, nodding his head that he saw it too.

They both watched as Rose took another long sniff and almost seemed to lean in towards the smell.

"Oh Rose," Jackie said watery eyes, "Look at you!"

"She's brilliant, your daughter," the Doctor said fondly, then added, "Here, I have a sponge. Why don't we try giving her a little taste?" He reached over Rose to hand her something that looked a bit like a lollipop, but had a tiny sponge where the candy would be.

"How do I…?" she began tentatively.

"Just dunk it in, maybe cool it off a bit and then bring it to her mouth," he encouraged her.

Hoping she wasn't going to muck it up, she followed the Doctor's instructions. But when she brought the sponge up to Rose's mouth, there was no reaction. She felt something inside her plummet. She had thought that maybe…

"It's ok," the Doctor said quietly, "Give her a minute."

They both watched with bated breath until finally…Rose pursed her lips and Jackie was able to squeeze the sponge in Rose's mouth. The reaction was instant. Rose sucked lightly on the sponge, swallowed, and then grinned. She grinned! More than that, her daughter giggled! She actually giggled!

It was…magical. The best sound Jackie had ever heard!

She shared a look of awe with the Doctor before quickly giving the sponge another dunk and bringing it back to Rose's lips. This time Rose was anticipating it and wasted no time capturing the tea-soaked sponge in her mouth and sucking the liquid out sloppily and noisily.

"What did I always say, Jackie? Your tea is amazing!" the Doctor said as he moved to support Rose's head so she had a better angle.

They got through several more rounds of sponge sips before Rose sputtered, coughed and seemed to lose interest. But in that short time Rose had been back with them, in some way. She'd smiled and laughed, and it had been wonderful.

"We'll try again this evening, eh?" the Doctor smiled down at Rose as he ran his fingers through her hair and then traced a soft line down her face, "Pete'll want to see how absolutely fantastic you are."

Jackie thought she'd spend the rest of her life doing nothing but making tea if it would bring her more moments like this when she got precious glimpses of her daughter.


	16. Chapter 16

The Doctor felt like he could just forget his time sense and instead mark the moments of his life by Rose Tyler's smiles. Each one was treasured, collected, and replayed in his mind over and over again. Her smiles were still missing something that made them….Rose, but they were a sign that the woman he loved may someday come back to him.

Encouraged by the first brief show of emotion over tea, the TARDIS' permanent and visiting residents upped the standards for trying to engage Rose. The Doctor and Jackie had spent the rest of the afternoon trying various smells to see how Rose reacted. Not much drew Rose out of wherever her mind wandered, but they had a few successes. She had made quite a face at the gingersnaps, but sniffed appreciatively at beef stew, curry, and freshly bakes brownies. Nutmeg got the biggest reaction - a sneeze, then a giggle. As much as the Doctor wanted to bring back taste into the samplings, he knew that the few sips of tea Rose had earlier was already pushing it. At least the TARDIS had happily supplied all the aromatic things he and Jackie could think of.

Unfortunately, they had gotten maybe more than a bit carried away. By the time Pete had come back from the office, Jack and Martha in tow, Rose was in quite a state. She was completely exhausted, barely able to keep her eyes open, but terrorized by the same unseen pain that had been plaguing her. She thrashed and screamed, dozed and then the cycle repeated when she startled awake, arching off the bed as if from an electric shock. The high of Rose's first sign of emotion deteriorated into a profound sense of helplessness and guilt for the Doctor. Nothing new there. He had started the sedation early that evening, unable to bear seeing Rose in such agony.

Martha had come to join him in the infirmary sometime that night, claiming a "messed up" sleep schedule from her shifts at A&E. He rather thought it was just to keep him company. After a few minutes of idle chit chat, Martha took a breath and hesitantly noted, "You know, you've been spending more time in the vortex. Haven't gotten a lot of help lately."

The Doctor shrugged off her concern, "We do ok," he said thinking of the comfortable routine Jackie, Pete, and he had settled into. They'd become quite the team - experts at tending to Rose, occupying idle time, and sharing daily chores. The TARDIS, while happy to provide anything Rose needed, had reigned back on other niceties like laundry, tidying up, and providing freshly cooked meals. After the first few days of telepathic arguing and floundering through such domestic chores, the Doctor decided the extra work was probably helping him stay sane.

Martha gave him a look over her cup of blueish tea that told him she didn't believe him for one second.

"We do!" he insisted. "Things may not be ideal, but having more people about isn't going to change that." After thinking for a moment he cocked his head and added, "Was that rude?"

Martha laughed, "Just a bit." On a more serious note she added, "But Doctor, I don't think things are quite as ok as you think they are. This day after day thing, this routine, it's wearing on you. Sometimes you seem like a different person than the bloke I traveled with."

"Usually when people tell me that, it's because I've regenerated," he muttered.

"Regenerated?" Martha questioned.

"Another time," he waved her off that topic, "Anyway, what exactly are my options? I can't just swan off on some adventure and leave Rose, leave Jackie and Pete to fend for themselves."

"You could let the rest of us help a bit more," Martha suggested carefully, "You could spend less time in the Vortex and more time on Earth. I'm sure Jackie and Pete would appreciate it too, not that convincing them to take a break will be much easier than with you. You could even, dunno, take a trip somewhere. Get some fresh air on some planet a billion years in the past or future, or both. May do you some good. Give you perspective. Make sure you're the man Rose remembers when she finally wakes up."

The Doctor scoffed, "I know you mean well, and I do appreciate everything you've done, I do. But I'm fine. I don't need to be managed, Martha."

The careful note in Martha's voice had ramped into the steady determination he'd seen only a few times before, "But you do." she said firmly, "Doctor, you're loosing perspective! You're…you're making mistakes!"

"Mistakes?" he was getting angry now, "What mistakes? In case you didn't notice, Rose is getting _better_! She smiled for the first time today, she laughed! What mistakes?"

"Well for starters, you got so excited about the smiling and laughing that you kept shoving smells at her," Martha pointed out. She wasn't wrong, but one afternoon of over exuberance was hardly…

"Rose sleeps a lot Doctor, ever since you installed that bed rocker, she doses all throughout the day. But today, instead of sleeping, instead of working on healing and resting, she was subject to hours of overstimulation. Do you know how exhausting that probably was for her?"

"Yes." The Doctor said shortly, "Yes, of course I do, and if you think I don't feel terrible…I got carried away Martha, that's all."

"No, it's not all." Martha replied, standing up to go to Rose's bedside, "I checked earlier, and I can't get her arm straight, not all the way."

The Doctor felt himself go cold as Martha gently guided Rose's bent elbow straighter. The movement stopped before Rose's arm was completely straight. "Contractures," he croaked out.

"Exactly," Martha nodded, more sympathetic now that he'd seen her point, "If she doesn't use her whole range of motion, she's going to loose it. Now it's just short of where she should be, but Doctor, if this keeps up, she'll lose functional use of her joints. And her muscles aren't much better. She does the same movements over and over again, so some of her muscles are gaining strength and some are atrophying. At this point, even if she woke up today, she'd not be able to walk or even shake your hand. She needs physiotherapy. And someone with fresh eyes should look over her chart too. I just checked and she's gotten quite low in folate and vitamin B12…"

"No she's not!" The Doctor said furiously. She had some good points, Martha, but to insinuate he wasn't following Rose's body chemistry was frankly offensive.

"Yes," she said firmly, "She is."

"The levels are perfectly within range for -"

But Martha had snatched the tablet off the counter and breezed through a few menus before shoving it at him.

"Yes," she repeated, "She is."

The Doctor glared at Martha for a moment before glancing down at the numbers. He opened his mouth to argue but left it hanging open in silence as he realized she'd been right. How could he have missed it? Now that he found it, the abnormal values seemed to jump out of the screen at him.

In a softer voice now that she'd proven her point Martha said, "I don't know what it's like for your people, but us humans kind of need that stuff."

"But…but I've been supplementing…" the Doctor sputtered.

"You've been giving her normal amounts of B12, sure, but you've also been giving her folic acid. And she's MTHFR positive. It's -"

"Disrupting her folate cycle," the Doctor finished, horrified. Because of a quirk of her genetics, Rose was unable to use folic acid. A common enough mutation, and most of the time humans didn't even know they had it. But by pumping the usually tolerated vitamin through her IV every time he noticed her values were a bit off, he was just further blocking that metabolic pathway. That plus her low B12 could have serious effects. "I…I, " he stammered wondering how this human doctor from the twenty-first century had caught something he'd missed.

"Hey," Martha said, walking over and resting a hand on his arm, "You've got a lot you're keeping track of. And full disclosure, we did have a seminar on MTHFR mutations last week."

"Yeah, that is in vogue in this time isn't it?" the Doctor said.

"Starting to be, yeah," Martha nodded, "Anyway, we had the seminar because we had a patient in A&E a while back - deteriorating consciousness, worsening paralysis…complete medical mystery. Nearly lost the little guy before we figured it out. It was one of the new med students who realized what was wrong. Sometimes it takes a fresh pair of eyes and a different perspective."

The Doctor didn't miss the meaning behind Martha's little story, but he pretended to ignore it. He turned his back on Martha and set down the tablet so he could rummage through one of the cabinets.

"Doctor…" Martha entreated, sounding frustrated again.

"Here," the Doctor said turning around and handing Martha a few vials of liquid, "You do the honors Dr. Jones."

Martha looked at him hard before shrugging and starting to prepare the doses Rose needed.

Once her back was turned it was easier to speak, "Could you…could you take a shift with Rose?" the Doctor asked, "Maybe look over everything while you're at it?"

Martha, probably afraid to spook him out of his acquiescence kept her back turned and said causally, "'Course Doctor."

"And, you'll need to sleep before your next shift at the hospital…So I was thinking…I could take the TARDIS…dunno somewhere. I'm sure I could find some corrupt government to overthrow. Then you can get some rest and I'll get you back ten minutes after we left.

Martha turned around grinning, "With your driving? Ten hours is more like it. I'll ring Grace and have her cover for me. Could use a break to be honest. Maybe I could catch some time on another planet if you're up for company after we get Rose sorted out."

The Doctor nodded, thinking that maybe he could tolerate those terms, "I'll go tell the Tyler's."

"No, you'll ask them," Martha said rolling her eyes. Maybe she had the upper hand, the Doctor thought, but she didn't have to flaunt it like that.

Not bothering to reply the Doctor headed off to tell…no _ask_ Jackie and Pete if there could be some schedule changes. He was sure they'd say yes.

Two weeks later, the Doctor walked into the infirmary feeling a bit more put together. He'd done some traveling with Martha and then Jack. The humans could be frustrating travel partners sometimes - after two trips Martha told him wryly that she should change her name to Not-Rose because apparently he had a habit of looking at her and wishing she was someone else - but in general they were good company. It felt good to get back out there again, but still, he always felt like he left one of his hearts back in the infirmary.

Rose was doing better. He could say it was just time passing, but he thought Martha's help was at least part of it. After talking to some colleagues in physio, Martha had put together a program for Rose that she and the Doctor took turns implementing. At first the Doctor just thought it helped Rose thrash around with more strength, but the first time she grabbed at a pice of food on his plate, he knew the program was helping. And boy was food a big motivator for her. Her digestion had come back online and Rose seemed to be trying to make up for lost time. Rassilon she could eat. Could eat herself into being sick, in fact, if she wasn't cut off at some point. After a frightening episode when Rose choked, they'd learned to be careful with what type of food they gave her in addition to how much. Rose still couldn't feed herself, but she happily gobbled up anything on a spoon or fork that was offered to her. Setbacks aside, it was all rather promising.

Presently, the Doctor was at the infirmary counter preparing a meal for her out of leftovers from the breakfast the rest of them had eaten. He'd taken her off the sedation a half hour ago, so she should be waking up any minute. He tossed the ham into a blender for a few seconds and mashed the veggies with the back of a fork until he thought only Rose could find the green mush appetizing. Once she was awake, he'd heat it up with a brush of his sonic. He grabbed a hand towel from one of the cabinets that's he'd use as a bib and nodded in satisfaction that he was ready to start another day with her.

Eyes roving over the cluttered countertop, he spotted some horrible sci-fi novel that Jack had left. Well that was as good of way to spend the time as any, he figured. But as he reached for the paperback, he paused. Something was tugging at the back of his mind. Something felt…different. Was it a subtle variance to the micro current of the circulating air? Or a slight change in pitch of the hum of the TARDIS? No, but it was something similar, something so small he'd usually ignore it. So why wasn't he ignoring it now? Why was he frozen with a hand awkwardly outstretched towards the book? Why were his hearts racing and breath moving toward respiratory bypass?

Before he could fully understand, could fully put a name to the feeling, he slowly, slowly turned to face Rose.

She lay half propped up in the bed, as he expected, but her eyes were open. With how quiet the room was, he'd been sure she was still sleeping…

And there was something…something more, something deep in those hazel eyes he felt as their gazes locked. She was looking at him like she'd been waiting for him to turn and face her.

"Rose?" he asked shakily, remembering all the times he'd called to her without getting any kind of response.

She tilted her head to the side, grinned at him with her tongue touched smile, raised her eyebrows like he was being thick and replied, "Doctor."

The fork fell from his numb fingers and clattered to the floor.

Rose's face pinched in concern, "You ok?"

Rassilon, ok? Oh, he was so much more than ok.

"Oh yes," he croaked, and went to her.

* * *

Thank you all so much for reading! I'm working on a sequel now that will first be posted on AO3 (whoficky).


End file.
